The Destruction of Huma Abedin’s Emails on the Clinton Server and their Surprise Recovery

Despite extraordinarily intense coverage of all aspects of Hillary Clinton’s emails, all commentary to date (to my knowledge), even the underlying FBI Report, has paid little to no attention to the destruction of Huma Abedin’s emails, also stored on the Clinton server. Further, even with the greatly increased interest in Huma’s emails arising from the discoveries on Anthony Weiner’s laptop, speculation has mostly focused on the potential connection to deleted Hillary emails, rather than the potentially much larger tranche of deleted Huma emails from the Clinton server (many of which would, in all probability, be connected to Hillary in any event.)

Both Hillary and Huma had clintonemail accounts. Huma was unique in that respect among Hillary’s coterie. (Chelsea Clinton, under the pseudonym of Diane Reynolds, was the only other person with a clintonemail address.)

The wiping and bleaching of the Clinton server and backups can be conclusively dated to late March 2015. All pst files for both Hillary and Huma’s accounts were deleted and bleached in that carnage. While an expurgated version of Hillary’s archive (her “work-related” emails) had been preserved at her lawyer’s office (thereby giving at least a talking-point against criticism), no corresponding version of Huma’s archive was preserved from the Clinton server.

Huma had accessed her clintonemail account through a web browser and, to her knowledge, had not kept a local copy on her own computer. So when Huma’s pst files were deleted from the Clinton server and backups, those were the only known copies of her clintonemail.com emails. When Huma was eventually asked by the State Department to provide any federal records “in her possession”, her lawyers took the position that emails on the Clinton server were not in Huma’s possession and made no attempt to search Huma’s account on the Clinton server (though such an attempt would have been fruitless by the time that they were involved). Huma’s ultimate production of non-gov emails was a meagre ~6K emails, while, in reality, the number of non-gov emails that she sent or received is likely to be an order of magnitude greater.

Hillary was also asked to return all federal records “in her possession”, but did not return Huma’s emails on the Clinton server. In today’s post, I’ll examine Hillary’s affidavit and answer to interrogatories in the Judicial Watch proceedings, both made under “penalty of perjury” to show the misdirection. You have to watch the pea very carefully

In respect to the ~600K emails recently discovered on the Anthony Weiner laptop, my surmise is that many, if not most, will derive from Huma’s unwitting backup of her clintonemail account prior to its March 2015 destruction on the Clinton server. In other words, the March 2015 destruction of pst files from the Clinton server included several hundred thousand Huma emails from her tenure at the State Department, over and about the 30K Hillary emails about “yoga”.

The Expurgated Version of Hillary’s Email Archive

At the time of their exit from the State Department, employees are required to sign a separation form (OF-109), formally confirming that they have returned all federal records, both classified and unclassified, and have not kept personal copies. The form lists multiple statutes, each with criminal penalties, and requires the exiting employee to confirm that they have been advised of and understand these penalties. Hillary does not appear to have signed an OF-109 form when she left the State Department in 2013, but it seems evident that the obligations listed in the form arise from the underlying legislation and not from the form itself.

On or about July 23, 2014, State Department employees gave Cheryl Mills a heads-up that Hillary’s private email address would be revealed in eight emails, scheduled to be delivered to the Benghazi Committee in August 2014. Mills then initiated a program for collation and culling emails from Hillary emails archived on the Clinton server, then operated by Platte River Networks (PRN). The culling was primarily carried out by Heather Samuelson, a lawyer working for Mills who, like Mills, had previously worked for Clinton at the State Department.

On November 12, 2014, nearly two years after Hillary’s departure, the State Department belatedly requested that Hillary provide them with a copy of federal records in her possession, via a letter to Mills in her capacity as Hillary’s “representative”. The letter stated that, “should your principal or his or her authorized representative be aware or become aware in the future of a federal record, such as an email sent or received on a personal email account while serving as Secretary of State, that a copy of this record be made available to the Department… We ask that a record be provided to the Department if there is reason to believe that it may not otherwise be preserved in the Department’s recordkeeping system”.

Working under the supervision and direction of Mills and David Kendall, Hillary’s outside lawyer, Samuelson had extracted a subset of approximately 30,000 “work-related” emails from approximately 62,000 emails said to have been stored on the Clinton server. This subset was returned to the State Department in paper form (55,000 pages) on December 5, 2014. Samuelson also created a corresponding pst file, which was placed on a thumb drive for Kendall, the thumb drive subsequently being turned over to the FBI on August 6, 2015.

Although (1) the State Department request had been for “federal records” in Hillary’s possession and (2) Huma’s emails were also federal records in Hillary’s possession (on the Clinton server), neither Mills nor Clinton took any steps to make a copy of Huma’s emails for review by counsel or otherwise produce them to the State Department.

March 2015: the destruction of pst files on the Clinton server and backups

After production of the expurgated version of Hillary’s emails, Mills directed Combetta of Platte River to change the retention policy on Hillary’s email account to 60 days – a change in policy which would have led to the cleansing of the archive by mid-February 2015. Mills’ request can be dated precisely to December 10, 2014 by a reddit query by Combetta, using the pseudonym stonetear – an identification discovered in September 2016 by Twitter commenter Katica. However, Combetta forgot to implement the 60-day policy, an oversight with important implications.

In January 2015, under Mills’ direction and authority, Combetta deleted and bleached all copies of pst files pertaining to the Hillary archive on the computers belonging to Samuelson and Mills.

Events began to accelerate on March 2, 2015, when the New York Times reported Hillary’s exclusive use of a private email address and server during her tenure at State.

The next day (March 3), the Benghazi Committee issued a comprehensive preservation order to Williams and Connolley, Hillary’s lawyers as follows:

1. Preserve all email, electronic documents and date (“electronic records”) created since January 1, 2009, that can be reasonably anticipated to be the subject to a request for production by the Committee. For the purpose of this request, “preserve” means taking reasonable steps to prevent the partial or full destruction, alteration, testing, deletion, shredding, incineration, wiping, relocation, migration, theft or mutation of electronic records, as well as negligent or intentional handling that would make such records incomplete or inaccessible;
2. Exercise reasonable efforts to identify and notify former employees and contractors who may have access to such electronic records that they are to be preserved; and
3. If it is the routine practice of any employee or contractor to destroy or otherwise alter such electronic records, either: halt such practices or arrange for the preservation of complete and accurate duplicates or copies of such records, suitable for production if requested.

The preservation order included a provision that ought to have turned off the 60 day policy that Mills had ordered as well as further deletions. The Benghazi Committee issued a subpoena the following day for documents pertaining to Benghazi.

Williams and Connolley do not appear to have notified Platte River of the preservation order until March 9, nearly a week later, when, according to the FBI report, Mills sent Platte River an email to which a notice from Kendall was attached. The language of Kendall’s notice was not disclosed in the FBI documents and it is therefore not possible to determine whether the notice exactly tracked the requirements of the order from the Committee.

Prior to notifying Platte River of the preservation order on March 9, Mills had already initiated contact with Platte River by email and telephone, including an attempt to inventory pst files on the PRN server, Pagliano Server and various backups on or about March 5. The FBI 302s document multiple different pst files related to the Hillary archive, all of which appear to have been extant at the time of Mills’ contact with Platte River on or about March 5, including the following files mentioned in the FBI 302s: “HRC archive – complete.pst”; “hrcarchive@clintonemail.com – HRC archive.ost”; “export.pst”; “HRC.gov.email.Archive.pst”; “HRC.gov.emails.pst” and “HRC gov emails.pst”. Doubtless, there were others. Pst files then existed on both the server and backup. The FBI 302s also noted the existence of a pst file for Huma’s yahoo and gmail accounts (“huma-gmail-yahoo.pst”), but did not discuss the pst file for Huma’s clintonemail account.

On March 5, there were three emails to Platte River about the Clinton server. The sender of the emails is not identified in the FBI 302s, but it seems likely that Mills was involved in one or more of the March 5 emails.

Platte River work tickets revealed that PRN employees traveled to the Equinix facility in New Jersey on March 7-8 to examine the predecessor server and backup then in storage at Equinix (Pagliano Server), following which they “confirmed” to Mills that there were no pst files remaining on the server. This server was later turned over by Kendall to the FBI on August 12, 2015.

On March 9, Mills sent an email to Platte River and employees, including Combetta, in which preservation instructions from Kendall were attached. In his February 2016 interview, Combetta denied knowledge of the preservation order, but in a subsequent interview in May 2016, Combetta admitted knowledge of the preservation request, saying that he interpreted it “as meaning he should not disturb CLINTON’s email data on the PRN server”.

Platte River work tickets show that Combetta did further work for Mills on March 10 and 12. Combetta’s implausible explanation to the FBI was that “MILLS did not have an account on the Server and he could not recall what work he might have done for MILLS” and that “MILLS occasionally contacted [Combetta] with problems related to her personal email account, so the work tickets may have been of that nature”.

On March 19, the Benghazi Committee formally requested that the Clinton server be turned over to an independent third party for examination of the supposedly “non-work-related” emails.

On March 25, Mills and/or Kendall sent two emails to Platte River and had a conference call with Platte River. According to the 302 for Combetta’s February 2016 interview, one of the March 25 emails referred to “backups”, a reference which Combetta purported not to recall. This reference was omitted from the FBI report itself. The FBI 302 went on to state that Combetta was advised by his attorney not to “answer any questions related to conversations with KENDALL based on [his] protections under the Fifth Amendment”. In his May 2016 interview (after receiving an immunity agreement), Combetta stated that “he could not recall the content of the call or the reference to backups in the email”. In the FBI Report itself, Combetta’s refusal to answer questions on his discussions with Mills and Kendall was incorrectly described as a refusal based on assertion of attorney-client privilege, but the interview notes attributed the refusal in the February interview to invocation of the 5th Amendment and lack of recollection in the May interview.

Platte River server logs show that on March 25 (presumably subsequent to the conference call with Mills and Kendall), the Platte Admin account was used to modify multiple mailboxes associated with Hillary’s emails (H, HDR29, and HRC Archive), with the HRC Archive mailbox being completely removed from the Exchange server. The changes on March 25 were described in the 302 as follows:

[Combetta] believed he had an ‘oh Shit moment and removed the HRC Archive mailbox. He also changed the mailbox retention policy from 30 days to 1 day, and cleaned the mailbox database because MILLS previously requested in late 2014 or early 2015 he change the retention policy for CLINTON and ABEDIN’s existing and ongoing email to 60 days. He removed the HRC Archive mailbox manually because all content in the mailbox was older than 60 days. [Combetta] changed the deleted items retention policy from 30 days to 1 day to ensure no email outside of the 60 days remained on the server and executed the Clean-MailboxDatabase command to clean whitespace within the database, similar to running a disk defragmentation. [Combetta] also enabled Circular Logging, but did not recall why he did so in this instance. He typically enabled it when importing email because Microsoft Exchange logs contain email that hasn’t been committed to a database. Circular Logging reduces the log file size by forcing Exchange to commit data to the database immediately,

Two days later (March 27), Kendall sent a letter to the Benghazi Committee, in which he made the surprising announcement that none of Hillary’s emails from her tenure at State Department remained on either the server or backup (thereby rendering moot their request for examination of the server):

The letter was immediately circulated to Hillary’s inner circle (see Podesta emails here) though, curiously, Hillary herself was not included in the distribution. The deletion of emails from the server was promptly reported by the New York Times (here) and Politico (here).

Ironically, Kendall’s statement was incorrect when made. Combetta had not erased all pst copies.

On March 31, Mills and Kendall had a further conference call with Platte River. Platte River work tickets and server logs for March 31 show more deletion of pst files, including “multiple manual deletions” from the Datto backup. In his second interview, Combetta “stated everyone at PRN has access to the Datto client portal”, but in his third interview, conceded that it was “unlikely anyone else at PRN would have deleted the files”. Combetta denied any recollection of performing the deletions or being asked to delete backups.

PRN logs also notoriously showed that Bleach Bit was applied to both the PRN administration server and exchange server on March 31. While the 302s did not provide timing relative to the conference call with Mills and Kendall, it seems a reasonable surmise that it was subsequent to the call. The FBI 302 (third interview) summarized the incident as follows:

After reviewing documents titled “Bleach Bit – PRN Admin Seryer and “Bleach Bit – Exchange Server” indicating the use of Bleach Bit on March 31, 2015, [Combetta] stated he checked the Exchange Server for remaining copies of CLINTON’s email. When he located a pst file, he used the most recent non-beta version of Bleach Bit available at the time to shred the pst files on the PRN server, but did not recall which pst files he found or removed. He did not wipe free space, encountered no errors, and viewed the folders to see if the files were gone, but did not take additional steps to confirm the deletions.

In his February 2016 interview, Combetta pleaded the 5th Amendment on his March 31 conference call with Mills and Kendall, as well as the March 25 conference call. In his February 2016 interview, Combetta said that he carried out the “action of his own accord based on his normal practices as an engineer”. In his May 2016 interview, Combetta said that he “did not talk with MILLS about the files he found and deleted”.

Mills was interviewed twice, first on April 9 and secondly on May 29. Mills appears to have agreed to her April interview on the understanding that she not be questioned about events subsequent to Hillary’s tenure at State (i.e. about the destruction of emails.) According to a contemporary press report, Mills stormed out of the first interview when it began to touch on 2014 procedures for culling “work-related” emails. In her second interview, Mills denied any involvement with the deletion of pst files by Platte River Employees as follows:

Note that Mills claimed here to have notified Platte River of preservation obligations prior to commissioning the trip to the Pagliano Server on May 7-8, though the date of her email containing Kendall’s preservation notice was not until March 9. Although Kendall was involved in the conference calls immediately prior to the destruction of pst files, the FBI does not appear to have interviewed Kendall.

It appears certain that pst files for Huma’s email were destroyed as part of the carnage on March 25 and/or March 31, 2015. The FBI does not seem to have turned its mind to questioning Combetta on the specific authority for the destruction of Huma’s emails, as distinct from Hillary’s emails. The most relevant comment appears to be the following from Combetta’s second interview:

[Combetta] does not recall who or when the conversation occurred, but someone from CESC told him at some point s/he did not want the pst files hanging around and wanted them off of the Server after the export.

Combetta’s wholesale destruction of pst files, without even paying attention to “which pst files he found or removed”, seems very much in the spirit of an instruction to destroy all the pst files.

By the time that the FBI seized the Clinton servers (August 2015 for the server used from 2009 to June 2013; October 2015 for the server used from June 2013 on), the pst file or files containing Huma’s emails had been bleached from the Clinton servers.

Huma’s Trick

When Huma left the State Department in February 2013, she signed a form OF-109 that she had returned all classified and unclassified federal records, assertions that were obviously untrue on multiple counts.

On March 11, 2015, following the publicity from the New York Times article and Benghazi Committee requests, the State Department belatedly asked Huma to “make available to the Department” any “federal record in your possession, such as an email sent or received on a personal email account while serving in your official capacity at the Department”. The State Department sent its request to the wrong addresses and Huma didn’t receive the letter until she initiated contact with the State Department in mid-May 2015.

When Huma received the State Department’s request, she gave (what she thought) were the relevant devices to her lawyers and the password to her clintonemail account and charged them with responding to the State Department request. Her lawyers (Rodriguez and Dunn) took the technical position that Huma’s emails on the Clinton server (huma@clintonemail) were not in Huma’s possession and thus not Huma’s responsibility to locate. This is clear from the following paragraph in the FBI 302 for the interview with Huma:

At the time of the review by Huma’s lawyers (July 2015), the Huma pst file on the Clinton server had almost certainly been already bleached. As a result, even if they had attempted to access her clintonemail.com account, they would not have recovered anything anyway. However, they did not do so and do not appear to have notified the State Department about potential Huma emails on the Clinton server that had not been produced.

Huma told the FBI in May 2016 (and her evidence on this seems plausible) that she had accessed her clintonemail account using a web browser and did not maintain a local copy:

In summer 2016, Huma’s lawyers produced a small number of non-gov emails (6,271) to the State Department – a number that was only a small fraction of the ~62K emails from Hillary’s clintonemail account. Huma’s failure to produce emails from her clintonemailcom account doesn’t seem to have troubled anyone at the State Department or FBI, who either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

Hillary’s Trick

The disappearance of Huma’s clintonemail emails was, however, an issue in Judicial Watch’s FOIA litigation (01363) in summer 2015, which eventually led to Hillary providing answers “under penalty of perjury”. Here, it is interesting to watch the pea carefully.

Judicial Watch’s FOIA action 01363 originated in a request for documents related to State Department permission for Huma to be employed by Teneo Consulting and the Clinton Foundation, while concurrently being employed by the State Department. The request had originally been filed in 2013 following the original news about Huma’s conflicting employments, but had been discontinued in 2014 without tangible results from the State Department.

When news of the private server broke in March 2015, Judicial Watch successfully applied for re-opening of the case, with an order being granted in May 2015. The State Department argued that they had any obligation to search records on the Clinton server, but, after fierce resistance, Judicial Watch managed to obtain an order from Judge Emmett Sullivan on July 31, 2015, which required that the State Department request each of Hillary, Huma and Cheryl Mills to give affidavits “under penalty of perjury” that they had returned all “responsive” federal records.

On August 5, 2015, Patrick Kennedy, Under-Secretary of State, accordingly wrote a letter to Kendall, in his capacity of Hillary’s lawyer, in which he first noted that the State Department had previously requested that Hillary provide it with “any federal record in her possession, such as an email sent or received on a personal email account while serving as Secretary of State, if there is reason to believe that it may not otherwise be preserved in the Department’s recordkeeping system”, and then notified Kendall of the court order in the Judicial Watch case, characterizing the request as follows: Hillary:

In response, on August 8, Hillary provided an affidavit which did not make the requested declaration that she had returned all federal records in her possession. Instead, Hillary made the different declaration that she had directed the return of “all my e-mails”, a sleight of hand which concealed the destruction of the Huma emails, also federal records which had been in Hillary’s possession:

Judicial Watch was alert to the misdirection and, in follow-up pleadings, drew attention to the lack of clarity about the outcome of the Huma emails on the Clinton server. They succeeded in obtaining an order for discovery (highly unusual in FOIA cases). It has taken over a year to obtain responses. They deposed Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin earlier this year and, after continued obfuscation, were authorized to issue interrogatories to Hillary, which were sent to her on August 31, 2016. While several questions in the Judicial Watch interrogatories (especially questions 21,22,23 and 25) touch on the deletion of emails from the Clinton server, the interrogatories did not pose questions about the deletion of Huma’s emails as squarely as they might have, but did define the “clintonemail.com accounts” broadly enough to encompass the fact that both Huma and Hillary had accounts.

The response by Hillary and her lawyers (filed recently on October 14, 2016) took care to misdirect away from the destruction of Huma emails on the Clinton server using the same technique as the August 8, 2015 affidavit. Hillary’s lawyers slyly re-defined the scope of the “clintonemail.com account” to Hillary’s account only:

By doing so, they were then able to make assertions about the re-defined “clintonemail.com accounts” without discussing the fate of Huma’s clintonemail.com emails.

Hillary’s interview with the FBI took place in June 2016. She does not appear to have been asked particularly searching questions about events and, in any event, pleaded ignorance on all issues regarding the deletion of emails from the Clinton server.

The Emails on the Weiner Laptop

Just as the above trails were running cold, approximately 600K emails were discovered on Anthony Weiner’s laptop in an unrelated investigation. Some of these emails were traced back to the clintonemail domain, resulting in the FBI re-opening their investigation into mishandling of classified information on the Clinton server.

Information on the provenance of these emails is thus far sketchy, but the following seems plausible:

A source close to Anthony Weiner’s legal team tells Bret Baier that it seems the laptop containing those emails was used to backup his estranged wife’s Smartphone contacts. In the process, the computer apparently backed up all of the emails as well.

There has been speculation that they might include 32K Hillary emails that had been deleted. However, it seems to me that it is far more plausible that they will turn out to include (or even be) the Huma emails from clintonemail.com, accidentally backed up prior to their deletion from the Clinton server in March 2015.

As a start, it is logical that Huma’s email count would be much larger than Hillary’s simply from the nature of her job function. In the Podesta emails, there were approximately 3.5 times as many emails to/from Huma’s clintonemail address as to/from Hillary’s clintonemail address, but the ratio could easily have been considerably higher while they were at the State Department. There were ~62K emails in the Hillary clintonemail.com archive provided to her lawyers. Application of the Podesta ratio as a rule of thumb yields an estimated count of approximately 220,000 Huma emails. If all of the Weiner laptop emails came from Huma’s clintonemail account, the ratio would be approximately 10:1, a ratio that is not implausible.

The connection to climate

One of the best-known Climategate incidents involved the deletion of emails in order to avoid a FOIA request. Phil Jones notoriously emailed Michael Mann asking him: “Mike, Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise… Can you also email Gene [Wahl] and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address. We will be getting Caspar [Ammann] to do likewise. Cheers, Phil”. Mann cheerfully agreed, contacting Wahl who promptly destroyed the emails that worried Jones and Briffa.

As a result of researching potential U.S. legal issues in the Climategate email deletion, I discussed or mentioned an interesting U.S. case on obstruction of justice (U.S. v Quattrone) at Climate Audit on several occasions (most thoroughly in a post here on the Mann v Steyn libel case in 2014, but also in passing here and here). In the post on the Mann v Steyn libel case, I summarized U.S. v Quattrone as follows:

At the time, Quattrone’s firm was under SEC investigation for its handling of IPO trading. It was then relatively late in the calendar year and an administrator at his firm had sent a standard memo to all staff reminding them of the firm’s document retention policies and procedures. A few hours later, after learning of a leak of the investigation by the Wall Street Journal and being told to retain counsel, Quattrone sent an email to his staff endorsing the seemingly routine instruction as follows: “having been a key witness in a securities litigation case in south texas (miniscribe) i strongly advise you to follow these procedures”.

Quattrone’s email was countermanded the following day by the firm’s legal department and no documents were deleted. Nonetheless, Quattrone was charged with obstruction of justice under pre-Sarbanes-Oxley section 1512. The case had a complicated history and went on for years. The key point for the present discussion [Mann’s role in the deletion of climate emails] is that an appeal court ruled that a trier of fact could have concluded that Quattrone acted with a “corrupt intent”, an element of the offence, even though, on its face, Quattrone was endorsing a legitimate request.

The Quattrone case has a remarkable connection to the present controversy: the DOJ attorney who had found corrupt intent in Quattrone’s actions was James Comey, the present director of the FBI.

Postscript

I originally became interested in the controversy over deletion of emails because the issue had arisen in Climategate controversy and I recalled Comey’s connection with the Quattrone case. When I examined the documents, I noticed the apparent sleight of hand on the fate of Huma Abedin’s emails on the Clinton server almost immediately. Dealing with climate scientists over the years teaches one to always watch the pea. I had been mulling whether or how to write it up, but the discovery of emails on Weiner’s laptop, together with resulting speculation, resulted in the topic becoming of more general interest and prompted me to write the present post.

I am fascinated by the present U.S. election. I once voted for the Rhinocerus Party in a Canadian election in which all parties seemed particularly unpalatable and, if I were an American, I would probably stay home or write in some obscure candidate. As a form of both reassurance and realism to U.S readers, regardless of which candidate wins, I suspect that it will matter much less to future governance than partisans hope on the one hand or fear on the other.

545 Comments

“The State Department argued that they had any obligation to search records on the Clinton server, but, after fierce resistance, Judicial Watch managed to obtain an order from Judge Emmett Sullivan on July 31, 2005″

July 31, 2005 seems off.

SIC? ” peculation” near bottom, 7 para up from end excluding summarization.

Finally: “if there is reason to believe that it may not otherwise be preserve in the Department’s”

preserve sic?

Trying to take instruction to ‘watch the pea’.
Steve: thanks. fixed. though “peculation” might be a useful word in a different context.

Making a “protest vote” of either kind is not reasonable at all, because nobody will care that you made it unless 50 years or more from now as a pedantic and essentially meaningless footnote in a boring history book (“It should be mentioned that not every voter chose to engage with the choice put before them, but simply wrote in their own alternative ‘candidate’…all such alternatives were never heard from, or discussed, ever again, of course.”) It amazes me that supposedly intelligent people should be so afraid of making the ONLY CHOICE they have to make their vote count. If you’re not part of the solution, you are part of the problem–make no mistake, if you refuse the choice put before you, you are part of the problem, for it means you have no idea of what the choice really is.

I vote in Massachusetts, electorally guaranteed for Clinton; this *is* my way of making my vote count. To me the most important problem is that both major parties have similar views of expanding government control. Neither party seems likely to change that perspective, so the solution can only come with new parties.

Me too. I live in predisposed blue NY. A conservative with libertarian leanings, I wouldn’t vote D or R, because those 2 parties have failed me and many others. Our votes are intended as a wake-up call to the corrupt parties and their blindly partisan followers.

I don’t think not voting for either candidate is unreasonable. It’s my vote, and my voice. If I voted for Johnson and Trump won, I’m OK with that. The worse scenario would be if I had voted for Hillary and she got in; then I’d have felt partly responsible for electing someone I believe is a terrible candidate.

No one has any right to tell anyone how to vote or to accuse someone of “throwing a vote away.” How anyone else but you votes is none of your business.

It could very well be that all of those who did a protest vote caused Trump to be elected. I say that the people have spoken, and good for them.

Does anyone know what ‘Foundry’ means? It is the subject of a meeting between Podesta, Mills, and Kendall that they were not willing to discuss in e-mail. They spent Christmas thru New Years trying to meet.

One thing I don’t like about what Clinton and Abedin did was having their lawyers search for the work-related emails. If you intended to be honest and responsible, a reliable clerk should have been able to search for the emails and then possibly turn them over to a lawyer to review what should have been a comparatively small number of emails where the issue of whether they were work-related or not was legitimately at issue.

What happens when a lawyer searches for emails is that the client can argue attorney client privilege with respect to what was searched for. [The type of search should be open to public scrutiny because Clinton placed all of her public records on a private server] This reflects very poorly on Clinton and Abedin in my view. Unfortunately, these are typical Clinton tactics.

As pointed out on The Reg, the delay in releasing a conclusion about the content of the Wiener emails is inexcusable and the “difficulty” claims made by the FBI are either absurd or evidence of extreme “computer” incompetence. They should have been able to have found all “clintonone” originated emails within minutes after acquiring access to the pst file(s). After that, at most a day or two to determine whether there was anything new. In fact with available text-analysis software they should have been able to subset the email into relevant and irrelevant sets and then automatically scanned the “relevant” set for text that did not match the earlier 30K emails were considered relevant by the FBI. The short version is that by delaying a statement the FBI dabbled either deliberately or incompetently in politics in an election year.

All of this indicates that Hillary’s staff was less tech-savvy than a college student. A few years ago, movie stars had their cloud backups hacked and pictures posted online. Automatic backup of state dept docs? Really? And they didn’t even know about it? Perhaps the keystone cops was not a comedy but a documentary.

Steve Mc: “Where a task is assigned to someone else, Hillary should have had to approve the search parameters and responsible for the reasonableness of them.”

Clinton did probably approve them. The problem is that they could be exempt from disclosure on the basis of attorney-client privilege. If you are having attorneys doing the review, they can be creative in turning work emails into personal emails and stretching the definition of what is personal. Makes it easier to delete potentially embarrassing stuff and harder to find out what was really deleted.

Mike N “How is it attorney client privilege?
Just because you have a lawyer be your getaway car driver doesn’t mean you can’t ask him about the bank robbery.”

You are correct. Lawyer participation in a criminal scheme is not privileged. On the other hand, a judge may find that the lawyers were simply giving advice on what was and was not work related. There are a good number of subtle issues here, but in reality, Clinton created another hurdle for others to clear in any attempts to find out what was deleted.

One of the committees filed a complaint with the DC bar about Cheryl Mills under the following article:
“The District of Columbia’s Rules of Professional Conduct strictly prohibit a lawyer from accepting employment in connection with a matter the lawyer “participated personally and substantially as a public officer or employee.” This is an “absolute disqualification” that “carries forward a policy of avoiding both actual impropriety and the appearance of impropriety.””

Question: if it were determined that Mills was prohibited from acting as lawyer for Clinton in these matters, would that pierce assertions of attorney-client privilege?

In a quick search, I couldn’t find the rule you quoted. However, the commentary to Rule 1.2 states: “a lawyer may not knowingly assist a client in criminal or fraudulent conduct. There is a critical distinction between presenting an analysis of legal aspects of questionable conduct and recommending the means by which a crime or fraud might be committed with impunity.” This could apply to Mills and the other lawyers.

My concern is not so much with Mills, but the lawyers who were actually hired to review the emails. In my view, it is likely that they were hired, at the very least, to stretch the definition of what were personal emails to the furthest extent possible. They would know exactly the type of emails that were deleted — Mills was probably too high up the chain to actually do the work of looking at each individual email.

My guess would be that where there was a controversial or embarrassing state department email, neither Clinton or Mills would want to know about it if it was deleted by creatively stretching the definition of personal emails. Later on, if the deletion was discovered Clinton or Mills could simply say they delegated the matter to someone and the lower level attorney made a mistake — not Clinton or Mills.

It does appear that the language you cited would apply to Mills, but I would like to see the full rule before making a more definitive judgment.

I’ll check the references on the rule. On the culling, the evidence is that Heather Samuelson, an attorney who, like Mills, had worked for Clinton at State – and thus subject to the same conflict issues – did the initial screening. Mills then reviewed the first cull and deleted some.

Andy McCarthy has written about this. The Justice Department should have objected, and the FBI should have objected, because not only is she not allowed for the reason you gave, but she was a material witness in the investigation, so she should not have been participating as Hillary’s lawyer in the FBI interviews. Also, your question is moot, since she was not really acting as Clinton’s lawyer, but was being an assistant who happened to be a lawyer.

In a quick search, I couldn’t find the rule you quoted. However, the commentary to Rule 1.2 states: “a lawyer may not knowingly assist a client in criminal or fraudulent conduct. There is a critical distinction between presenting an analysis of legal aspects of questionable conduct and recommending the means by which a crime or fraud might be committed with impunity.” This could apply to Mills and the other lawyers.

My concern is not so much with Mills, but the lawyers who were actually hired to review the emails. In my view, it is likely that they were hired, at the very least, to stretch the definition of what were personal emails to the furthest extent possible. They would know exactly the type of emails that were deleted — Mills was probably too high up the chain to actually do the work of looking at each individual email.

My guess would be that where there was a controversial or embarrassing state department email, neither Clinton or Mills would want to know about it if it was deleted by creatively stretching the definition of personal emails. Later on, if the deletion was discovered Clinton or Mills could simply say they delegated the matter to someone and the lower level attorney made a mistake — not Clinton or Mills.

It does appear that the language you cited would apply to Mills, but I would like to see the full rule before making a more definitive judgment.

Huma almost certainly had sign-on privileges on Hillary’s email account. I dont think that Huma or Hillary were asked directly, but one of the coterie mentioned that this was highly possible. In addition to her own, it’s possible that Huma might have backed up Hillary’s emails, either inadvertently or advertently. That would be one way in which the FBI would be in possession of the deleted emails.

That was the first thing that entered my mind. I don’t think any other body of messages would have motivated the Director to have broken protocol when and how he did. Yes, the Foundation investigation proceeds, but Comey specifically referred to the Secretary’s email investigation as the case that was being revisited. I don’t think yoga figured in his decision.

Help me here. I’m trying to understand the potential significance of Abedin’s emails:

* Clinton might prefer reading paper to reading computer screens. That’s not uncommon among early baby-boomers.
* If so, then Abedin (as Clinton’s gatekeeper) might have received the bulk of Clinton’s incoming work emails, screened them and printed the ones she thought Clinton needed to read.
* And, retained Clinton’s work-related emails for possible future reference or response.
* So, the 600,000 emails might contain mountains of classified material, emails responsive to subpoenas but never produced, Clinton Foundation intrigue, other intrigue, etc.
* All sitting on a home computer guarded by maybe a family cat

More likely just automatic “sync” with the smartphone, or even between several of the devices in use by the “team”. Or, consider the folder’s label: “Insurance Policy”. Perhaps the weenie wagger thought that the tranche could give him some leverage (oops, bad word).

Steve: I think that the “insurance policy” story is a joke, rather than sourced information. the idea of an automatic sync makes sense to me. My cellphone seems to have a mind of its own in aquiring emails.

At home or from elsewhere: pretty troublesome that an Saudi raised Muslim part time advisor managed to basically run a US Secretary of State e-mail correspondence out of official purview plus through amateur technology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huma_Abedin#Early_life
Homeland Security must have gotten lost in the World Wide Haystack and forgot the front lawn.

As a form of both reassurance and realism to U.S readers, regardless of which candidate wins, I suspect that it will matter much less to future governance than partisans hope on the one hand or fear on the other.

I’ll remember and be comforted by this when trump attempts to renegotiate the US national debt or to solve the issues in teh Middle East by bombing the *** out of ISIS.

As a form of both reassurance and realism to U.S readers, regardless of which candidate wins, I suspect that it will matter much less to future governance than partisans hope on the one hand or fear on the other.

As a leading edge baby bomber, I would urge people who hold views similar to that above to watch the movie “Thirteen Days” or read the many accounts of the situation surrounding the Cuban missile crisis. I can remember doing my homework and wondering if I would be alive in the morning to hand it in. I can remember going to school and wondering if I would be alive to come home. I can remember the real fear in people as the accounts of the Soviets ships approaching the quarantine line were read out. What would happen when Soviet and American forces met at the quarantine line under threat of the American ultimatum to stop them by force. So, I hold a contrary view that it does matter very much who wins.

It was Kennedy’s ineptness and miscalculations in Vienna that laid the seeds for the crises in Cuba and in Berlin. However, it was Kennedy’s coolness that restrained his generals who wanted and expected a war. It was Kennedy’s coolness to ignore the second cable and respond only to the first that allowed the agreement to take place. It was Khrushchev’s capability to accept the agreement while restraining Castro who wanted to attack.
So, I take the view that it matters very much who wins. I concur with Bernie Sanders that there are things that matter than a lot more than those damn Emails. In 1961 Berlin, fully armed Soviet and American tanks faced each other because of Kennedy’s failures in Berlin. The decision to go to war had devolved from politicians at the highest levels to the lieutenants and sergeants in command of those tanks. In 1962 with the events surrounding Cuba, the American and Russian nuclear forces were within hours of destroying human civilization. So, I have to disagree with comment expressed above, it does matter very much who is in command of the American nuclear capability

Kennedy exhibited poor judgment in ways other than you referenced. For instance, at the same time, we were complaining about missiles in Cuba, the US had Jupiter missiles in Turkey pointed at Russia. Also, Kennedy dishonestly smeared Eisenhower stating their was a missile gap, when there was none. Eisenhower has proven to be the most skilled and prescient President with respect to the use of military power, at least since the beginning of the 20th century. While in office, he kept the US out of Hungary and a land war in Asia. He worked to impose meaningful controls on military spending. Yet he was wrongfully attacked by Kennedy.

Think of a situation akin to the Cuban missile crisis with a president in the Oval Office with a General Curtis Lemay advocating and even demanding an attack. This was a Cuits Lemay who approached and likely achieved insubordination with implications that Kennedy was weak for not ordering an attack. The President, whoever they are, has to have the capability to control the situation and remain calm. The Pentagon recommended an attack on Cuba. Kennedy asked them for an estimate of US civilian deaths. They estimated these at 20 million. Is this the sort of situation that one would want to give to somebody on the hope that they would grow in office?

Remember that Curtis Lemay led the strategic bombing campaign against Japan. Military officers of his generation had seen the absolute destruction of a country with the losses of millions of lives. These discussions in the Oval Office were among people who had first hand knowledge of the destructiveness of war. The March 9-10 1945 raid on Tokyo killed in excess of 100,000 (one estimate of 250,000) people in one night and left a million homeless. This was without nuclear weapons. The choice to select the person who will act as the Commander-in-Chief for a force with thousands of time the power of the strategic bombing forces deployed against Japan is a grave one. There has to be a better way of selecting it than some sort of social media campaign or Twitter storm.

TAG: “It was Kennedy’s ineptness and miscalculations in Vienna that laid the seeds for the crises in Cuba and in Berlin.”

Kennedy quickly realized that the projection of weakness or accommodation was provocative to aggressors. The key to peace is deterrence. The key to deterrence is keeping a credible threat. Even my cats know this. If the west fears Trump as they did Reagan then the east might respect him.

Yeah it was really strong of Kennedy abandoning American trained Cuban invasion force of about 1,300 on the beaches of the Bay of Pigs….

Directly on the orders of Kennedy to keep the invasion low key, the US military failed to knock out the tiny Cuban air force which subsequently pinned down the Cubans on the Beach and sunk the handful of supply ships off shore.

The Cubans fought for two days with no resupply, air or artillery cover on the beaches against 20,000 regular Cuban troops and tanks, until they ran out of ammo…

Thank you from me and my Cuban family and friends Mr. President….xoxoxoxoxo

I have just watched a television discussion concerning teh appointments that Donald Trump has made to his cabinet. The discussion turned to the Cuban Missile Crisis. According to the historian on the program, the Soviet commanders on teh ground had been given orders to fire the missiles on Cuban territory if an American invasion occurred. I see this as proof that it does matter who is the President and any one time and his/her temperament and stability is a major factor in that. Given a President without Kennedy’s temperament, i would not be writing this note since I would have been dead at 14

The Defense Department advised an air strike against the missiles, which were not launch ready, the construction of the launch site not yet complete. Kennedy lacked the courage to do so. Instead, he blockaded Cuba, brought the world to the brink of a crisis, got scared, and made a deal with the USSR that perpetuated the Castro bootheel on Cuba to this day.

Is Kennedy’s lack of courage what you mean by “Kennedy’s temperament”? Or were you referring to his proclivity for his sexual escapades in the White House pool, these continuing during the whole crisis as Kennedy sought surcease from his tortured nerves?

Cuban Missile Crisis ended as a loss for the US, with the appearance of a win. Trump would have appreciated looking like a winner, with the other part of the deal to remain unspoken, but he is more likely to be the type to insist on a bigger win recognizing his leverage.
JFK could have insisted that things return to the way they were before, instead of ceding Cuba to the Russians.

Trump has made phone calls in the last two days that have offended two nuclear-armed states. One of these states holds vast amounts of the US national debt. The other state has been engaged in ongoing military actions with another nuclear-armed state.

Does anyone still think that it does not matter much who the incumbent president is?

“Trump has made phone calls in the last two days that have offended two nuclear-armed states.” Well, good. It’s about time we got past the idea that China is going to start a nuclear war because we talked to Taiwan. The only really insane government out there is North Korea. No one else is going to start a nuclear war, and I for one have no interest in going back to the fear of the ’60s.

The only really insane government out there is North Korea. No one else is going to start a nuclear war, and I for one have no interest in going back to the fear of the ’60s.

Well, Pakistan has nuclear weapons and the Pakistan intelligence agency supplied nuclear technology to Iran. Iran has developed missile systems capable of reaching Israel and with the implicit threat to use them. that is the reason for the Iran nuclear deal. As well, India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons and have engaged in military operations against one another over the issue of Kashmir. I would suggest that this implies a non-negligible threat of the use of nuclear weapons and the need for a subtle and informed practice of diplomacy. It is not something that I would turn over to beginners. It is something that I would suggest for which statements be taken both seriously and literally.

On the other hand, Trump has been quoted as suggesting that Saudi Arabia should procure its own nuclear weapons to counter the Iranian threat. Saudi Arabia and Iran are engaged in a proxy war in Yemen. The Iranian proxy group in the area has attacked American warships with anti-ship missiles.
The proxy war extends into the chaos is Syria. Russia has allied with the Iranian side through its support for the Syrian government. Trump has suggested that Russia be given a free hand here since it claims to be attacking ISIS and so, in effect, allying the US with Iranian goals. Just what Trump’s goal with his policies is difficult to understand. Perhaps these are not to be taken literally.

TAG, it appears that you had a bad fright during the Cuban missile crises, one that left you tortured by fears of nuclear war. You should try to remember that others do not share your affliction.
Nor do we share your unhappiness with Trump’s election. Myself, I feel hopeful that he will straighten out the mess that the present administration has made of the world (and Hillary herself contributed to that mess)

I will make a prediction: within his first term the decayed totalitarian regime of China will have been toppled and Trump will be the hero of 1.4 billion Chinese.

‘China owns the debt’, I’ve heard this line for 20 years as if it means they can threaten America. What can they do with these bonds?
The only threat they can make is to not buy new debt, which is perhaps a problem with the US still about half a trillion in debt every year. The other thing is the old debt is usually in short term bonds, so even if there were no annual budget deficit, China could cause problems by not buying up the debt when it rolls over, but if there is no deficit, there would presumably be other buyers available.

I suppose everyone has seen Trump’s latest tweet storm about China. Paul Ryan was on 60 Minutes last night and was asked about how he would deal with a Trump administration. The Ryan interview gave me hope that the grown ups would take charge of running the US government while Trump could be left to do his thing whatever that is.

Given Trump’s behavior (accepting the phone call and his tweets) with respect to China, as an example, does anyone think that this is a person who has any real sense of the issues and knows any restraint. He is compelled respond to anything that he sees as a challenge and just has to “win”.

TAG, a new broom sweeps clean. Old China policy out, New China Policy in. China understands that, even if you don’t. Your problem is that you swallow the Trump-bashing uncritically. Others are not so gullible.

The historic 1972 treaty between the US and China has this clause: “The United States is aware that Chinese on both sides of the Straight of Formosa hold the view that there is but one China. The United States takes no issue with this view”. The ambiguity of this clause is deliberate.

Time to stop being a messenger boy for the Trump-bashers. Japan, ROC, and the Philippines are with Trump on this, with more to come.

As far as the China issue, I would just mention that since 1972 it has been obvious to me that the United States has been doing something immoral by shutting out Taiwan in favor of China. There is a government there of some actual people. If China’s attitude is that you must shut them out in order to allowed to deal with us, the only response that makes sense is, We will decide with whom we talk. We’ll be glad to talk to you, but you can’t tell us what else to do.

The Republic of China and the Chinese People’s Republic have roots that go back to Sun Yat-Sen. The enmity between them dates from circa 1920 when the communists and the Kuomintang diverged in their aims.

The ROC poses no military threat to the CPR. The threat is political: the ROC is a democracy that claims it is the legitimate government of China, a sort of government in exile. Charles de Gaulle in WW 2 showed how such a claim could be made good when backed by a friendly power.

So the totalitarian CPR fears and hates the ROC. Trump understands the board and the moves of the pieces. I expect to see a carrier fleet assigned to the Straights of Formosa. The Trump holds the ace of trumps:
the aspirations of the repressed Chinese, who yearn for a true democracy. The ROC is a true democracy with universal suffrage and a multi party system.

So the totalitarian CPR fears and hates the ROC. Trump understands the board and the moves of the pieces. I expect to see a carrier fleet assigned to the Straights of Formosa. The Trump holds the ace of trumps:
the aspirations of the repressed Chinese, who yearn for a true democracy. The ROC is a true democracy with universal suffrage and a multi party system

The economies of Taiwan and China are integrated. China would not have to do anything militarily. It could simply obstruct Taiwanese exports to and imports from China. China could collapse the Taiwanese economy. This would be sort of like China building a wall,

If China’s attitude is that you must shut them out in order to allowed to deal with us, the only response that makes sense is, We will decide with whom we talk. We’ll be glad to talk to you, but you can’t tell us what else to do.

There is a polite fiction in which the US recognizes Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan but deals with teh Taiwanese government as a national government in all but name. The US has a delegation there that functions like an embassy. The US sells arms to teh Taiwanese militarily. The joint Sino-American fiction allows the two superpowers to have a useful relationship while allowing the Taiwanese to have self-government. it is an arrangement that works.

I am old enough to remember the Taiwan/Formosa issue from the 1950s. I can remember CBS news reports about the 7th Fleet being deployed to the Formosa Straits and the shelling to the islands of Quemoy and Matsu by China. The current arrangement is much preferable to the recurrent military crises that existed then.

Over sixty $ billion invested by ROC interests in the mainland in thousands of different enterprises, all of these approved by the totalitarian regime. Strange that Trump’s phone call would upset them so much. The Republic of China poses no threat, militarily, to the Chinese People’s Republic.

There was a news report yesterday that the CPR flew nuclear weapons capable bombers around Taiwan, just recently, escorted by fighters. This was reported to be the first such instance ever.Japan scrambled a squadron of fighters to intercept this as it approached her territories of the southernmost Ryukyu archipelago. So China just took a swipe at Japan and the ROC, both. TAG, maybe you should explain to the China junta that they can collapse the ROC economy, easy-peasy. But, maybe they think a little show of force is the best thing for now.

“The joint Sino-American fiction allows the two superpowers to have a useful relationship while allowing the Taiwanese to have self-government. it is an arrangement that works.” Now we’ll have a new arrangement that works, one that is more decent.

As a form of both reassurance and realism to U.S readers, regardless of which candidate wins, I suspect that it will matter much less to future governance than partisans hope on the one hand or fear on the other.

I think that Dr Mann has figured out that the gravy train will hit the buffers if Mr Trump is elected President. For climate science (and the EPA) it will make a difference if he is elected.

It seems to me that a person seeking high office should routinely display detailed knowledge of the rules and regulations of office, before and after elevation, rather than the use of expensive lawyers and assorted advisors as to how these laws, regulations and procedures can be bypassed. Has it not occurred that the holder of this office has a duty to ensure that news laws are made and made in such a way that they reflect the will of the people to abide by them, not avoid them?
Thank you, Steve, for your usual thorough analysis here.

This subset was returned to the State Department in paper form (55,000 pages) on December 5, 2014.

This sort of reminded me of the incident in The Hockey Stick Illusion where the IPCC sends McIntyre a large package with a list of review comments in a 200 plus page printout instead of a searchable file or CD.

Steve: yes, I recall that. In both cases, the motives were the same: they were trying to be as uncooperative as possible.

I’m very grateful to Steve for applying his talent in assembling and summarizing facts to this sorry episode. Pointing to Comey’s part in Quattrone, where evidence of intent was subtle, is like applying bleachbit to Comey’s reputation. He knew this wiping of emails was the strongest case of intent, maybe he’d ever seen, yet he made the announcement “nothing to see here.” NPR covered the new “re-opening” and friction between FBI and “Justice” Dep’t as a politicized FBI breaking the rule of “no comment” re: investigations. Funny that, NPR took no notice of this when Comey made his “all clear” statements. To Steve’s question above re: Mills lawyer-client privilege, I say Justice told Comey to allow this patent sham, as an extra layer of protection, and to his lasting shame, Comey complied. Extra protection? Well, if a future AG tries to prosecute Hill, she’ll claim gov’t misconduct (for following her lawyer’s suggestions!) and tie up process like Gordian knot. With all things Clinton, one must imagine the lowest, most cynical answer-then look lower.

you say ” many others are realizing the forgotten Huma emails and devices”. But they’re completely missing one of the largest points. They are focusing on whether Huma had turned over “all” of her devices, rather than the role of Hillary and Cheryl Mills in destroying the archive on the Clinton server.

On Huma’s return of devices, I’m inclined to think that there was some kind of sync when she signed on from Weiner’s laptop and she didn’t realize it and so there was probably not any “corrupt intent” in her omission. But, IMO, there was corrupt intent in the wholesale destructio of emails from the Clinton serveer in late March 2015, despite the Congressional preservatino order.

This is an excellent recap. It’s seems obvious that the mass deletions the same day as phone calls w/ Mills & Kendall were pursuant to their instructions, unless it was a series of miraculous coincidences.
Combetta’s invocation of the Fifth Amendment in his first interview and then “I don’t recall” regarding his phone call w/ Kendall in the second is a joke. Why take the 5th if you don’t remember? “I don’t recall” is a classic dodge because it’s so hard to disprove.
The DOJ whitewashed this investigation – agreeing to limited scope interviews w/ Mills, permitting Mills and Samuelson, who were witnesses or suspects themselves, to act as counsel, permitting multiple witnesses to be represented by the same lawyer, the immunities granted, relying on witness cooperation instead of subpoenas, the list goes on. This appears to have fomented rebellion in the FBI.
As for the Huma emails on the Weiner laptop, my theory is that Huma’s and perhaps HRC’s clintonemail.com accounts were set up on the email client on that machine, and that it pulled down and stored locally all emails from those accounts every time it sent or received. You are likely correct that Huma was pulling down HRC’s emails – common for executive assistants.

It occurred to me that one of the agencies may routinely intercept State Emails for its own edification and of course without anyone else’s knowledge. People within the agency who are familiar with their content are offended about dropped balls and thwarted investigations in problem areas that they are aware of.

But how to get this material into the hands of the only folks who are likely to do anything?

What possible better laundry (as the term is used in the washing of illegally acquired funds) than to plant it (the emails) on Weiner’s laptop. Huma can honestly say she didn’t know about them which could be true whether they got there as part of an archiving function or were planted.

The FBI would be sure to find them. And no-one who will likely have access to the laptop would think to analyze whether the disk structure really fits what might be expected had they been written over the years that are claimed? And what are they doing with a machine dating back to 2012?

I also like the idea that Hillary kept a copy just as Nixon did so that the truth of what people said or did can be used if it is ever necessary.

FWIW, this isn’t any more far-fetched than a lot of what’s been in the press recently.

A story in Breitbart yesterday, citing Blackwater founder Erik Prince, says the NYPD found Huma’s emails while searching Weiner’s laptop for underage sexting evidence. NYPD was going to pursue it if FBI refused, according to the article, so Comey had no choice but to reopen the case. Lots of other juicy allegations, including six Hillary trips to Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged sex island. (Bill went 20+ times.)

Also Mark Steyn had a piece yesterday that included a letter he received from an IT executive, who said Huma’s emails most likely got on Weiner’s computer when she synced her Blackberry calendar with it, perhaps not realizing that emails would be transferred to it as well.

…regardless of which candidate wins, I suspect that it will matter much less to future governance than partisans hope on the one hand or fear on the other.

Steve, I tried to tell myself that the differences are not that significant, that this election cycle is normal politics. But sadly I see we truly have not been so divided since the Civil War. We have roughly half who see America’s founding principles threatened and the other half that as no big loss, that corruption can be accommodated as long as there is a greater cause behind it. The ideals of liberty and justice which created opportunity for anyone enterprising enough to take them has given way to opportunity to demand entitlement based on an avenue of historic grievance, victimization or socialism for its own sake of “ideological justice”. We are on the brink of a Venezuela moment in slow-mo.

Ron,
I’ve been puzzling these last months on why clearly intelligent people can support Trump. Your words above are the most succinct I’ve seen which identify the choice. I doubt that 50% on either side actually recognizes what you’ve written, but I do. In a piece early last week, George Will quoted a longer New Yorker interview with HRC in which she said she wanted to merge the public and private sectors.

I’m pretty sure Trump would never think of such a thing. Let’s hope our institutions are strong enough to resist this sort of thing for the 4 years it will take for her to finally be gone once and for all. Assuming, of course…

“I’ve been puzzling these last months on why clearly intelligent people can support Trump.” A plague on both their houses. Trump was below dead last on my list of Republican candidates, but how in the world can anyone who cares about the country support Clinton and her gang? Trump at least will be opposed by the ruling elite.

Ron,
I’m stunned when I see analyses of events like yours. “not so divided since the Civil War.” Did you not live through the Sixties? Assassinations of multiple political leaders, an incredibly unpopular war fostering endless large scale demonstrations/riots and domestic bombings, a President who declined to run for a second term because of the turmoil, regular catastrophic riots in the Inner City as blacks demanded their long denied rights or raged against their lot, bra burning by women seeking the same, a violent crime rate far above today, the threat of Mutual Assured Destruction looming over us as we dug our Fallout Shelters…blah. blah. blah.
Nearly everything else in your email was as far off the mark, but I’ve said enough. Venezuela slo-mo? That’s precious. Get a grip.

John, I think Ron is right. The comparison to the 60s is a mistake. We had lots of serious problems then, but the people who felt disaffected were either (a) teenagers who didn’t want the draft, or (b) blacks. Neither one threatened the country as a whole.
Today is different. There is an entire section of the country (“fly-over”) that feels that the US Federal government has become a criminal conspiracy to take their resources and funnel them to the politically powerful. And that those who rule them in Washington have only contempt for them and are oblivious that they might have any right to their opinions.
That’s why Trump is doing as well as he is, as awful as he is. A sizable chunk of the electorate – concentrated in a number of states! – are willing to burn their way out of the present situation. Ignore them at your peril.

I’d add that I am still having this dialogue with some people in England who are having trouble dealing with Brexit. Their point of view seems to be, “It is completely obviously that Brexit is a terrible idea. It is obvious to me, to everyone I read, to everyone I respect. Those others are either pathetic or evil, and I am not even going to think about them. I read an article yesterday that Brexit isn’t going to happen, and I’m sure that’s true; surely the government will have the sense to put a stop to this.”
Whereas I, an American who knows nothing at all about the economic issues and such, finds Brexit simple to understand. Lots of British people do not think of themselves as being one with Europe any more. As such, they will not suffer themselves to be ruled by them, even if independence will require suffering.
Of course, the way the other side refuses to admit that their point of view exists doesn’t make it more likely to find a common ground with them.

Dear Steve, sorry for an off-topic comment – I don’t particularly like those on my blog, either – but you may find news saying that Ralph Cicerone died yesterday. So I am now reviewing your blog as a trustworthy place to figure out what’s his actual heritage…

check http://www.climateaudit.org/tag/cicerone for a number of past posts in which Cicerone was mentioned. I wrote https://climateaudit.org/2006/03/05/sir-humphrey-and-the-boehlert-questions/ about his changing of the terms of reference for the NAS hockey stick inquiry – a change which avoided any investigation of Mann’s data sharing or conduct. Cicerone volunteered NAS to investigate after controversy arose over questions from Barton’s Energy and Commerce Committee. The House Science Committee, which had commissioned the study, sent terms of reference, which included some specific questions about Mann’s data sharing and conduct. Cicerone changed the terms of reference to make the report more general and academic and deleted questions about data. Von Storch’s presentation addressed the original questions. Committee Chair Gerry North tried to stop Von Storch from answering such questions (which other members of the panel were unaware of.) Eventually von Storch was allowed to proceed. A staffer from the Science Committee asked the panel at the workshop to answer the questions that they’d been asked, as well as the more general topics.

When the North panel failed to address the items, the Science Committee refused to pay them. I learned this from Cicerone himself on the one occasion that I met him. I sat beside him at the second hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the hockey stick. We chatted pleasantly. Mann’s avatar on twitter contains a picture from this hearing: Cicerone is in the picture sitting beside Mann. On the right side of the image, you can see the edge of a suit-jacket of a man sitting on the other side of Cicerone – that was me.

I was under the impression that the US gov’t records retention law was a direct consequence of Climategate. Hillary and Huma appear to both flout the spirit and substance of both the FOI and records retentions laws. I retired from the US federal service Aug 2015 after 37 yrs of service and had to go through the check out process also. I already voted two weeks ago in Florida, and voted for Chesley Sullenberger, a guy I like and respect.

I rephrased that poorly, after Climategate theirs was a flurry of memos sent out to all federal employees concerning records retention. A yearly class in records management was added, and was a required class. So, from 2010 on, all federal employees, and I assume this also applies to the Dept. of State, would have been aware of the need to maintain gov’t records and properly respond to FOIA requests in a timely and professional manner. This re-emphasis was a direct result of what transpired in Climategate, so both Huma and Hillary should have known better.

I have followed Climate Audit for years. Always a lurker. But on this I feel compelled to raise an some issues I hope others will respond to. What perplexes me is why there wasn’t an indictment of Platte River Network for not correctly preserving the records subpoena’d by the House. Even if Combetta did this on his own, PRN was served the subpoena’d so someone at Platte River should be held responsible for not preserving the records. (I would think the proper handling of such an order would be to immediately inform all associates to preserve these records, including COmbetta. Not doing that seems to be clear ob-of-justice.) Whoever got the Cheryl Mills letter that notified then of the preservation order, but then failed to make sure the order was carried out should be charged. Perhaps the CEO? Maybe the lawyers here can explain why this hasn’t happened. A further question is whether granting Combetta immunity wasn’t effectively investigative malpractice.

It appears that Comey interpreted the terms of reference for his investigation to be limited to the handling of classified information by Hillary Clinton herself – an issue raised by the State Inspector General. Obstruction of justice (e.g. deletion of documents) was not addressed.

As prosecutor, Comey was very aggressive in making obstruction of justice charges e.g. Martha Stewart and Frank Quattrone. In Martha Stewart’s case, she was found innocent of the underlying insider trading charges and was only found guilty on obstruction of justice.

Given the astonishing synchronism between the conference calls with Cheryl Mills/David Kendall and the destruction of pst files at Platte River, it seems perplexing that these events can be closed. At a minimum, it seems that Cheryl Mills ought to face charges. In Watergate, one of the hard parts was penetrating past Haldeman/Ehrlichmann to Nixon and one can easily the same sort of situation here.

In his appearance before Chaffetz’ Committee, Comey said that he needed a reference to investigate alleged false statements made to the House Benghazi Committee. It’s hard to understand Comey taking such a technical position or whether this is even valid, given his aggressiveness in other cases, but there it is.

Comey was stating that Congress would have to make a referral, and then Congress made a referral.

Cheryl Mills spoke to the FBI with obstruction ruled out of bounds, and she left the interview when one of the agents asked about e-mail deletion.

Steve: she stormed out of the April 2016 interview. She answered questions in a subsequent interview. Presumably her immunity came in between, In her answers in respect to March 2015 deletions, she denied doing anything wrong.

Thanks for the response, Steve. I started following you early on (2007 I think), but since I was an employee of Big Oil (XOM) I didn’t think it was appropriate to engage on any Climate blog. However, now I have fully retired and severed all ties. But in reality I view public corruption as a much bigger issue than poorly done Climate Science. (Altho I do consider any corruption of the scientific method a very significant problem for our society.) I hope you are correct that this is not the end of it. I agree if Cheryl Mills did not take the correct action or incorrectly framed the request to PRN, she should face charges. But if PRN received a correctly framed preservation order and failed to act appropriately they should be charged. (At XOM occasionally we received preservation orders from our legal department to retain all documents pursuant to a particular legal issue.) But finally, if Combetta got the notification from legal and then acted inappropriately he should be the one charged. In which case the immunity deal is really investigative & prosecutorial malpractice. It gives the whole slew of players a get-out-of-jail free card.

In a letter to lawmakers released Sunday, the FBI director wrote that “we have reviewed all the communications that were to or from Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state.” Based on that review, Mr. Comey wrote, “we have not changed our conclusion that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton.”

The Political Mr. Comey
The FBI director gives Democrats the conclusion they demanded

It looks like our contributor, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, was right last week. FBI Director James Comey’s review of newly discovered Hillary Clinton-related emails was never going to change his legal judgment because the FBI and Justice Department handling of the case was never serious in the first place.http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-political-mr-comey-1478476250

A headline we’ve seen before, in 2013 …

The Political Mr. Comey
Obama’s FBI nominee has a record of prosecutorial excess and bad judgment.

President Obama on Friday nominated James Comey to run the FBI, and the former prosecutor and deputy attorney general is already garnering media effusions reserved for any Republican who fell out publicly with the Bush Administration. Forgive us if we don’t join this Beltway beatification.http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323728204578515650309268038

Steve: an interesting re-read. They didn’t mention his role in Martha Stewart or conversely shutting down corruption investigations into the Marc Rich pardon and Tony Rodham’s commission for a drug dealer pardon.

What Comey declared: they only examined emails in the 650,000 that were to or from HRC.

From what I’ve seen, most responsive emails would be to or from Huma, containing a copy of an email from HRC… because so many of these involved HRC asking for various classified messages to be printed. Now we find she even had a housekeeper doing it. And gave the housekeeper access to a SCIF (Secure Classified Info Facility) even though that too was illegal. NONE of those emails would have been examined, because they are not directly to or from HRC.

The astonishing part (from a security perspective) is the casual breaching of security regulations. An HRC request on private server, to Huma on phone, to have a classified message printed, is a multiple-breach.

Every HRC claim that she never sent an email marked classified… is actually a DOUBLE breach rather than an excuse. It was her job (and her team’s job) to recognize classified info no matter if marked or not. Worse, as SOS she was a Classification Authority… whose job included a requirement that she ensure any unmarked info become marked.

Just completely corrupt. I’m no longer upset… bemused is more like it.

My only remaining mild curiosities:
* What would it take for HRC to actually be charged with something
* How long before the corruption can no longer be ignored by those who vote for her

(Meanwhile, I’m about to get on a series of six long flights to return to the US… getting in Wed eve… and blissfully unaware of developments over the next few days until then! Ahhhh… 😀 )

These are likely not requests from Hillary to print something.
Huma said she occasionally forwarded to personal accounts for printing. It is not likely that Hillary would send Huma’s personal e-mail to get something printed.

Thinking about this some more about Comey’s decisions, both in July and November.

One of the things that seems striking to an observer is how an investigator could have concluded in July that there was nothing to see when two of the key people pleaded the 5th before Congress.

I looked back at the FBI report to see whether it reported them to have pleaded the 5th. It didnt. There was no mention whatever in the FBI report of anyone pleading the 5th. It mentioned that Combetta had pleaded attorney-client privilege on a discussion with Kendall and Mills. However, the FBI Report made a mistake on that point. Combetta, on his attorney’s advice, had pleaded the 5th – attorney-client privilege would not have been available to him in respect to discussions with Mills and Kendall who were not his attorneys.

This mistake in the Report took an important red flag from Comey’s view. I presume that Comey was unaware of the inconsistency: if he was aware of it, he would surely have asked that the inconsistency be reconciled.

If Comey had realized that one of the PRN employees had pleaded the 5th about his discussion with Mills and Kendall immediately preceding the destruction of documents, surely his attitude to the case in July would have been different.

Comey thus appears to have been unaware in July of any PRN employees pleading the 5th. But in September, two PRN employees, Combetta and Thornton, pleaded the 5th.

Combetta pretty clearly seems to be the PRN employee interviewed three times (HRC volume 3, pages 8-27). Im not entirely sure which PRN interviews correspond to Thornton, but my guess is HRC volume 3, pages 182-185, though there are also other PRN employee interviews in HRC volume 4, pages 12-13; and pages 32-33; and pages 35-38.

Thornton appears to be the tech who physically traveled to the Equinix facility and helped to “confirm” that there were no pst files on the Pagliano server. PRN did not receive notice of the preservation order until May 9, after their trip to Equinix. Thornton would not have been involved in the BleachBit incident – that was Combetta. Thornton had not pleaded the 5th in his FBI interviews nor had he had multiple “do not recalls”. So why would have he pleaded the 5th to Congress? Was there more to the Equinix trip than he had told?

In any event, as to developments between July and November, surely the decision of two PRN employees to plead the 5th before Congress ought to have been a development that was relevant to Comey’s investigation. I find it hard it to believe that FBI investigators normally conclude that there is nothing to see here when key witness plead the 5th. Since there was no mention of the 5th in the FBI Report given to Comey, surely the refusals in September should have prompted some investigation into what the PRN employees were concerned about and caused the error in the FBI report to be noticed and correct.

In fact, the Benghazi Committee had noticed the inconsistency between the FBI reports and interviews and asked Platte River about the inconsistency in their letter of Sept 6, 2016 – only to be confronted by 5th amendment pleadings. I can understand their frustration.

One of the criteria for recommending indictment is probability of obtaining a conviction. The probability of obtaining conviction is close to nil – due primarily the inability to seat an unbiased jury, especially in the eastern district of VA. Large segments of that federal district are very blue.

My thoughts on Comey’s July comments – he was trying his best to tell everyone that he wanted to indict but was told he could not by the DOJ and other higher ups along with the extreme hamstringing by the DOJ – with actually telling everyone as such. ie watching the pea.

Joe, don’t see why Jury issues or conviction issues should ever play a role in decision to indict. Surely the decision to indict hinges on sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. If the investigator / prosecutor at that stage allows a factor such as jury selection to affect that decision seems like legal malpractice. But I don’t practice law and would be interested to hear the opinions of folks who do.

Probability of conviction should not matter as a criteria for the decision as to whether to indict or not to indict, though my contacts indicate that this is one of the major unwritten criteria (my contacts are one secret service agent and 2 local fed prosecutors). For example, There was also a report (leaked) that the fed prosectors did not indict Hillary for the crimes associated with whitewater because they did not think the probability of conviction in Ark was possible with Bill’s popularity.

This criteria is also consistent in my field of expertise. I am a CPA with a specialization in taxation. The Govt (IRS) factors in the concept of “hazards of litigation” into whether to settle a case or let the case to trial. (assuming the taxpayer has filed a tax court petition and the issue is of law vs substantiation). The govt doesnt want an adverse opinion.

Reading between the lines – I get the distinct impression that Comey was stating at the July news conference that Hillary was guilty, but that DOJ barred him from recomending indictment (that is with the caveat that Comey was inept at his attempt to convey that info)

Steve I think you are hitting the nail on the head. There is definitely investigative malpractice here. The question remains — was it intentional (due to political interference) or simple incompetence. Very hard to prove. Having worked in a large organization, I always found it interesting how higher ups could achieve a predetermined outcome without explicitly ordering it or leaving any trace of their involvement. If Trump wins, there may be a whole lot of bleachbiting going on at DOJ/FBI.

Cicerone re-framed the terms of reference for the 2006 NAS panel to exclude any investigation in data sharing and/or manipulation by Mann. Having been circumscribed in their examination of such issues, the New York Times and Nature proclaimed that he was “cleared”.

The Oxburgh panel was commissioned to review 11 itemized peer reviewed papers by CRU authors, selected by Phil Jones, none of which had been topics of contention at Climate Audit. They quickly found no fault with those papers. Panel member David Hand made side criticism of Mann, but it was not incorporated into the report. Mann said that the panel cleared him.

The Muir Russell panel limited its attention to employees of CRU, not Penn State. Mann said that it cleared him.

The Penn State inquiry was concerned with Mann’s conduct at Penn State, though most of the controversy pertained to Mann’s conduct prior to his employment at Penn State. The Penn State inquiry took no evidence from critics. Penn State President Graham Spanier, now disgraced for failure to properly inquire into pedophilia charges against Jerry Sandusky, falsely stated that the inquiry was thorough.

The EPA “inquiry” said that the EPA Endangerment Inquiry had not relied on Mann’s articles or the 2001 IPCC report, thus integrity issues related to them, was moot. Mann said that the inquiry had cleared him.

Etc etc.

Comey seems to have self-imposed a limitation to classified information and shut his eyes to obstruction of justice, pay for play, Clinton Foundation etc. Once again, results from overly narrow terms of reference were then oversold.

Comey made a strong case that he found no intent to mishandle secret information (mens rea). At the hearing, Trey Gowdy showed how intent could be demonstrated. See 0-4:00 and 15:30-21:30 respectively of:

IMO Gowdy mostly discussed intent to obstruct justice, not intent to mishandle secret information. The terms of reference are wrong: They should be prosecuting a case on obstruction of justice or perjury or both.

I’m not sure how much one should blame Comey for this problem. The DOJ decides what charges might be brought and what agreements are made with witnesses. The FBI provides information to support those charges.

Can the terms of reference be understood to preclude, or not include, Clinton’s transmission and receipt of her emails and attachments through personal mobile devices? I understood these to be all “non-secure.” With all the attention to the image of parties hacking her server over landlines, I felt the air transmission issue wrongfully under-noticed. She could have been easily tapped. Or even her phone “spoofed” (or whatever word for wrongfully replicated).

This American Life has a piece this week titled, “Master of Her Domain … Name”

Sean Cole talks to reporter Garrett Graff, who read the 247 pages of interview summaries of the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. Graff concludes that it’s not the scandal most people thought it was. Not a sophisticated, Machiavellian scheme to evade federal rules and record laws. The interviews “depict less a sinister and carefully calculated effort to avoid transparency than a busy and uninterested executive who shows little comfort with even the basics of technology, working with a small, harried inner circle of aides. Reading the FBI’s interviews, Clinton’s team hardly seems organized enough to mount any sort of sinister cover-up.”

What the FBI Files Reveal About Hillary Clinton’s Email ServerNew documents tell the full, strange story of a technophobic VIP, a sloppy State Department, and the jerry-rigged computer that held it all together.

Roving – the 3 or 4 WSJ articles provide excellent insight into Copmey’s prior shortcomings. However, The This American Life article and the Politico article are nothing more than puff pieces to hide Hillary’s intent and corruption with State and the foundation.

You dont go to the expense of setting up a separate server unless your hiding something. State had elaborate systems in place to keep classified info classified. State had endless reminders of the protocal regarding classified info, etc. Does anyone the purple code, magic code, enigma, etc. the articles comment that powell used a private email – true but is was on a significantly smaller scale.

Does anyone remember the purple code, magic code, enigma, etc. and the impact for such lose control of classified information. The articles also make comments that powell used a private email – It is true that Powell did use his personal email but is was on a significantly smaller scale and did not incur the expense of a private email server in order to hide the correspondence from state or from FOIA

I think that there are some compelling arguments against the analysis of Garrett Graf’s article in Hillary’s prior history, which becomes of greater interest now.

I didn’t pay any attention to the Whitewater controversy at the time, but recently re-read the documents. It’s a long story. There were recommendations at the time to charge Hillary for obstruction of justice in regards to the concealment of billing records under subpoena. There is convincing evidence that Hillary’s aides removed documents from Vince Foster’s office after his suicide, using White House access to prevail over police tape. Comey was counsel to the Senate committee investigating Whitewater.

Second, Sandy Berger, who had been Bill Clinton’s national security adviser, was convicted of removing a document/documents of interest to the 9/11 Commission from the National Archives. The stolen document was presumably embarrassing to Clinton in connection with Osama bin Laden, but, since the document was destroyed, no one knows. Berger fell on his sword and take sole responsibility for the crime.

Berger remained a close ally and supporter of Hillary, as was his wife. As part of his punishment, he was barred from political activity for a while, but as soon as the embargo ended, involved himself again with Hillary. Berger’s case was an example of the difficulties arising when an inconvenient document is public, rather than private property.

One can see the temptation for Hillary from her previous experience – Whitewater, Berger – in keeping documents private to the greatest extent possible.

I’m completely convinced that she employed a private server to keep her records away from the public, rather than because of disorganization.

We have an almost unique perspective on this from climate. In order to evade FOIA, climate scientists have increasingly used gmail accounts. The IPCC even set up a comment structure with the specific intention of evading national FOIA.

Curt Weldon was investigating what Sandy Berger was up to, as well as other security failures. Bill Clinton then recruited Joe Sestak to run against him and held fundraisers for him. Clinton ranted at Chris Wallace in an interview after being asked about his failure to combat terrorism, and the only name he mentioned was Joe Sestak. Then the FBI raided his daughter’s house within weeks of the election, causing Weldon to lose his race. The seized materials led to no prosecution.

Suspicion was that Sandy walked off with notes about how Al Qaeda was planning to attack with planes. Specifically there was a thwarted attack in the Philippines that used about a dozen planes.

Suspicion was that Sandy walked off with notes about how Al Qaeda was planning to attack with planes.

IMO the Berger incident received too little attention in the Hillary case. Berger was a very close friend of the Clintons. I have a recollection that the Clintons used Berger’s wife as a real estate agent. Berger’s conviction, for being Underwear Burglar, would have been raw for Hillary.

Berger obviously stole something that was profoundly embarrassing to Bill Clinton and your surmise is about the only one that makes sense.

I’m sure that these events were very much on Hillary’s mind when she set up the private server. It would have made more sense to her to keep everything off the system in the first place. Her story about “convenience” is ludicrously implausible. Running your own server is inconvenient when you don’t need to.

Having said that, it also seems that the vast majority of her classified material was handled in accordance with protocol. But, as matters turned out, not all.

Hillary Clinton
o Wellesley College
o Yale Law
o Member of the impeachment inquiry staff in Washington, D.C., advising the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate scandal. Under the guidance of Chief Counsel John Doar and senior member Bernard W. Nussbaum, Rodham helped research procedures of impeachment and the historical grounds and standards for impeachment. The committee’s work culminated in the resignation of President Richard Nixon in August 1974. (Wikipedia)
o Partner Rose Law Firm
o First Lady Arkansas
o First Lady of The United States
o Front row seat at the Clinton impeachment
o US Senator
o US Secretary of State

And she didn’t understand the importance of record keeping; secrecy with respect to national security or not documenting (no matter how secure) to paper/email embarrassing or inconvenient or illegal thoughts and actions? Or maybe she figured she was untouchable.

it’s interesting to read the Whitewater documents. If Monica Lewinsky hadn’t come along, Hillary might have been indicted. The issues were surprisingly similar: obstruction of justice through concealment of documents.

This Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement signed 11/2009 by HRC specifies her understanding that she understands that “classified information” is “marked or unmarked classified information, including oral communications” and that all such information must be protected. (Note that many forms of information, such as foreign gov’t info, info from classified sources such as drones, etc, are “born” classified.)

This SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) Nondisclosure Agreement signed 1/2009 by HRC specifies further that she understands the procedures for SCI, knows what is SCI, will protect SCI either marked or known SCI, can cause irreparable harm by disclosing to unauthorized parties, and will never divulge such information.

This Classification Guide (itself a “declassified” document — take note that it is clearly marked as such), explains about “High Level Correspondence. This includes letters, diplomatic notes or memoranda or other reports of telephone or face-to-face conversations involving foreign chiefs of state or government, cabinet-level officials or comparable level figures, e.g., leaders of opposition parties. It should be presumed that this type of information should be classified at least CONFIDENTIAL…” — in other words much if not most high level information dealt with by her office is automatically classified (yes “CONFIDENTIAL” is classified and should never exist outside of official secure systems.)

Finally, the regulations under CFR 2005 Title 22 Vol 1 explain about Classification Authorities, about classification, declassification, and that for all such (classified OR declassified information) even in the case of email… “markings shall also be affixed to material other than paper documents, or the originator shall provide holders or recipients of the information with written instructions for protecting the information.”

In the middle of this sea of paperwork, a few simple realities should stand out:

* Classified information is carefully separated. It is always marked, even when declassified.
* It is never allowed to come into contact with an unsecured channel, system or person.
* It SHALL always be marked. Anyone with Classification Authority shall do so… or go ask if they don’t know.
* Everyone involved is seriously trained in all of this with regular renewed education.

And thus, claiming emails were never marked classified when sent is not an excuse, it is (at least) two breaches: failure to protect the information, and failure to ensure the info is marked. (And we have proof that HRC ordered info marks be removed, a further breach.)

I can tell you my friends with clearance have been sick to their stomachs about all of this. I’ve not yet been in contact since it was revealed that HRC sent her (non-qualified) maid into a SCIF to retrieve classified info for printing. A SCIF (SCI Facility) is a costly, highly secure room, designed for careful management of the most sensitive data.

Pete – you have detailed why comey’s inability to find “intent” so implausible. Security of classified info is paramount. To do anything to compromise security shows intent. (you have to argue that Hillary lacked the intellectual capacity to understand basic security to show she lacked intent – hard to agrue a harvard education woman, senator, attorney, sec of state lacked any intellectual capacity).

Is there not any regulation at that level, that pertains to employees so mentally compromised as to not remember anything about the job and have the need to rely on the judgment of others, regulation that would require the person or anyone around them, to report the issue and have the employee removed?

Thisisnotsogood Posted Nov 7, 2016 at 7:16 PM | Permalink
Is there not any regulation at that level, that pertains to employees so mentally compromised as to not remember anything about the job and have the need to rely on the judgment of others, regulation that would require the person or anyone around them, to report the issue and have the employee removed?

She got a few million to write her memoirs – so her memory must be sharp

Why do so many assume that Hillary and her inner circle understood the security issues posed by the Clinton server? She had been using a private server before she became Sec of State. She didn’t “intended” for it to be easy for outsiders to steal her email. She believed what she was doing was “secure” – whether or not it complied with State Department regulations that she and her cronies didn’t want to know about. Political appointees are always disdainful of bureaucratic rules that interfere with serving the President or a cabinet member. Lower-level staff may suffer penalties (up to losing their job) for security violations, but no one goes to jail unless they give information to a foreign government, lie about their actions, or a reporter betrays them. Clinton wasn’t going to lose her job for violating security rules. No one INTENDED for information to leak from her email server! It is unlikely that her inner circle were personally concerned with server security – that was a problem they had been paying others to handle for many years.

However, if Clinton’s communications became part of an official searchable State Department email database, there would be no way for her inner circle to prevent career State Department attorneys responding to subpoenas and FOI requests from turning over relevant Clinton email uncovered by a search of that database. Once such attorneys have discovered what they believe to be a relevant document, they – and anyone seeking to stop them – need to be concerned about obstruction of justice. Civil service rules provide protection for career government officials, who know they will have a job long after political appointees departed. The client of such attorneys is the US government, not Hillary Clinton.

If they run into trouble while protecting Hillary, insiders like Mills and Abedin know that there will always be a lucrative position available for them at the Clinton Foundation or a related organization (subsidized by the charitable deduction). However, they weren’t eager to risk being disbarred for ordering a State Department attorney to withhold information. So they arranged to keep Hillary’s official email in private hands. Later they hired outside attorneys working for Clinton as a private citizen (with attorney-client privilege, but without security clearance) to deal with subpoenas.

Since no one could be sure what information Hillary might receive or send by email, their INTENT was retain full control of those records.

Why do so many assume that Hillary and her inner circle understood the security issues posed by the Clinton server? ”

Maybe we were wrong to assume Hillary and her innner circle had the intellectual capacity to understand basic security issues, afterall she was only a lawyer, yale educated, senator, Sec of State with security clearance. Hint – in order to get security clearance – you have to understand security. FWIW, the last comments completely undermines Comey’s rationale for his inability to find intent.

RovingBroker: The Politico article you linked has a link to the State Department’s “clear-cut policy”, which says:

“It is the Department’s general policy that normal day-to-day operations be conducted on an authorized [Automated Information System], which has the proper level of security control to provide nonrepudiation, authentication and encryption, to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the resident information,”

Secretary Clinton certainly had the authority to make whatever exceptions to the department’s “general policy” she saw fit. General policies are not laws. Her decision to do so showed poor judgment, but not criminal intent. It is idiotic to suggest that she intended to handle her email (which included classified material) in an insecure manner. When classified information was sent to her server (mostly by others), laws concerning the handling of classified material were violated. Comey and Congressman Gowdy (a former prosecutor) debated the merits of the decision not to prosecute at the link I provided above.

IMO, Clinton’s intent in setting up this server almost certainly was to prevent career State Department attorneys responding to subpoenas and FOI requests from finding her email when searching the State Department email database for relevant documents. Whenever the State Department provided incomplete records because Secretary Clinton’s email was not in the database, there was (intentional) obstruction of justice (IMO). When she hired outside attorneys to review her email – State Department records containing classified information – there was obstruction of justice (IMO). When the server was wiped clean, there was obstruction of justice (IMO). Her lies about this subject are evidence of a guilty conscious and probably constituted perjury (IMO).

Joe: Hillary and her inner circle had delegated the problem of securing her server to experienced professionals. They should have contacted State Department IT professionals to be sure that the firm they were already using had an appropriate level of security, but they didn’t want to draw attention to what they were doing.

If I take home a top-secret document to read in preparation for a meeting tomorrow, I have intentionally broken the law. If I give that document to a foreign government, I will be prosecuted. If somebody learns that I had that document at home and I lie to the FBI about it (committing a second crime, obstruction of justice), I probably will be prosecuted. If I tell them the truth, I could lose my job, but I probably won’t be prosecuted. Clinton has lost her job – the presidency.

mpainter wrote: “Frank, if you confess to having committed a crime, the authorities are obligated by law to prosecute. You seem to miss all the essential points in your comments.”

Listen to Comey’s testimony in front of the House committee on Youtube or cspan and what his Republican critics said. None of his critics (especially Trey Gowdy, a former prosecutor) said the DOJ was obligated by law to prosecute what Clinton confessed to doing. They debated what could be proved IN COURT about her state of mind when violations occurred (mens rea) and whether the charges should be brought for flagrant neglect, which didn’t require proof of intent.

One could adopt Comey’s or Gowdy’s point of view, but your unsupported statement about the obligations of prosecutors is wrong.

Frank replied: Why do so many assume that Hillary and her inner circle understood the security issues posed by the Clinton server? ”

Joe responded: Maybe we were wrong to assume Hillary and her innner circle had the intellectual capacity to understand basic security issues, after all she was only a lawyer, yale educated, senator, Sec of State with security clearance. Hint – in order to get security clearance – you have to understand security.

Frank continues: The Clintons had no intention of exposing their email to public scrutiny. Before she became Secretary of State, they hired professionals to manage a private server for them. When she became Secretary of State, she continued to use the same server.

To get a security clearance, you are investigated for possible connections to unfriendly foreign governments. I doubt that you need to pass a test proving that you know how to handle classified material (though that would be an excellent idea). Comey said that Clinton’s FBI interview showed she was remarkably unsophisticated about classification. Each senator is provided with an email address, but Senators don’t have access to classified material.

Hired professionals? How many professionals stage a server in a bathroom? How many “professionals” leave a public facing server bare naked to hackers? How many “professionals” tell the end users that a phishing attempt is OK?

They hired a clown car full of idiots. And they are reaping their rewards.

Actually, Comey does not prosecute. He can recommend but the decision is not his, as I understand it.

And prosecutors have discretion which case to prosecute, so conceivably they might ignore a confession if it is a nut case. They will ignore a genuine confessions at their peril.

The justifications that Comey offered in support of his recommendation not to prosecute struck me as pretty lame. Then there are other problems. Steve McIntyre touched on some in the post. If the new DOJ decides to reopen this case, it will have a solid basis for doing so.

It amuses me how Hillary’s defenders keep trying to portray her as a simple innocent who knew very little about State Department security procedures, documents classification, the law, etc.

And now Frank tells us that this started with Comey. So Comey knows State Department security procedures and security classification better than our poor, innocent miss who was Secretary of State for four years.
And we are supposed to believe all of that.

If Hilary has suffered some type of memory impairment, it could be true.

mpainter writes: It amuses me how Hillary’s defenders keep trying to portray her as a simple innocent who knew very little about State Department security procedures, documents classification, the law, etc.

Frank replies: I initially entered this conversation when Steve M brought up “terms of reference” and the misdirected scope of the investigation. (Nov 7) I raised the possibility of charging Hillary with perjury and obstruction of justice with Youtube citations, so I’m clearly not one of Hillary’s defenders. I just don’t think her actions showed intent to risk exposure of classified documents. IMO, her intent was to KEEP as her email SECRET and under her control.

mpainter continues: So Comey knows State Department security procedures and security classification better than our poor, innocent miss who was Secretary of State for four years.

The system for classifying documents is national, not departmental. Given the FBIs responsibility for preventing domestic terrorist attacks, Comey dealt with highly classified intelligence, particularly raw intelligence, far more often than Hillary did. At the hearing, Comey said that only four emails were marked classified at the time when they reached Hillary’s server.

If you believe the WSJ article linked below, email security at the State Department was a mess. Many people sent Hillary classified email on their unclassified systems. Many emails were later classified and then redacted only because they are now being released and other departments objected. This information is intended to increase your cognizance; not excuse Hillary’s negligence.

@Frank – the law that Comey quoted does not state “intent”, just the action. The law that states “intent” is treason. So no, I do not think she intended to expose secrets. But I do think the evidence indicates she DID expose secrets.

One of the most bizarre parts of this farce was Hillary’s initial explanation when the existence of the server first came to light. She said it was for “convenience, since she only carried one device”. The fact that this was a lie is not nearly as interesting as the fact that it is nonsensical. The two things do not relate to one another in any way. Yet the media and the apologists ran with this as though it was an explanation. If you have the establishment on your side you do not even have to come up with plausible lies.

First comment: when Hillary said that there was no classified e-mail on her server, anyone with a grain of sense had to know that this was a bald-faced lie. How could she, as the Secretary of State of the United States of America, have conducted her business for four years with one server NOT HAVE CLASSIFIED E-MAIL ON HER SERVER?

Second comment: I have been in the criminal law business since 1980. First as an assistant district attorney for five years during which I tried hundreds of felony cases and eight death penalty cases. Then as an assistant public defender for seven years during which I tried hundreds of felony and misdemeanor cases, including three death penalty cases. For the last twenty plus years I have been a judge, almost exclusively in criminal courts. I can tell you that Comey’s “rationale” {including his statement that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case} for not recommending to the justice department that there be an indictment was absolutely preposterous. There is no requirement in the statutes that there be a specific intent to violate the law. {See Andrew McCarthy in NRO on this}.

Third comment: I don’t know what the hell went on here but it sure smells to high heaven. Whether the justice department and the rest of the Obama administration put the pressure on Comey, or what, we obviously do not know. We can only surmise. At the very least, Comey has trashed his reputation and ought to resign.

Phil – Third comment: I don’t know what the hell went on here but it sure smells to high heaven. Whether the justice department and the rest of the Obama administration put the pressure on Comey, or what, we obviously do not know. We can only surmise. At the very least, Comey has trashed his reputation and ought to resign.

Thanks for the insight – My take was that he was clearly informed not to indict. He clearly outlined why she intentionally violated numerous statutes in his July news conference (with emphasis on INTENTIONALLY). The honorable thing to do was to state that DOJ & others up the line thrawted a serious investigation, state your intention was recommend indicting, then resign or wait to get fired.

Posted Nov 7, 2016 at 5:47 PM | Permalink | Reply
First comment: when Hillary said that there was no classified e-mail on her server, anyone with a grain of sense had to know that this was a bald-faced lie. How could she, as the Secretary of State of the United States of America, have conducted her business for four years with one server NOT HAVE CLASSIFIED E-MAIL ON HER SERVER

There is a separate communication system used for classified material. Email should not be used for classified material

Given teh detailed parsing of this issue by many people including many here, others will know much much more about this than I do. However, I have read that the classified system itself is slow and cumbersome and nt user friendly.

Thank you for this detailed exposé.
It seems that Hillary was not the first Secretary of State to use – and conceal the use of – a private communication system for governmment business. See for instance https://www.corbettreport.com/clintons-email-scandal-is-much-bigger-than-clinton/
I sincerely hope that your closing comment “I suspect that it will matter much less to future governance than partisans hope on the one hand or fear on the other” is correct.

I am so glad to see this discussion here – there is such a tremendous amount of obfuscation and misdirection going on regarding the email affair, and most people/websites/articles dealing with the issue are massively partisan – it’s a breath of fresh air to read about this from some more level-headed sources.

Personally, I find the evidence to be incriminating (if only in tiny increments) at every twist and turn. A small sampling of relevant information:
The FBI allowed the destruction of the laptops used by Clinton’s aides in determining the “personal” emails: judiciary.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/100316_Goodlatte-Letter-to-AG-Lynch.pdf
Then gave immunity deals to 5(!) aides: washingtonexaminer.com/five-clinton-aides-received-immunity-deals-in-fbi-probe/article/2602684
There were “off-limits” questions in the interviews with some aides: washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/clinton-aide-leaves-interview-once-the-fbi-broaches-an-off-limits-topic/2016/05/10/cce5e0e8-161c-11e6-aa55-670cabef46e0_story.html
The FBI interviewed Clinton off the record (and in the presence of one of her aides/lawyers who was implicated herself!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SejYDIAooj4
Clinton and her aides claimed that none of 13(!) mobile devices she used to access the server could be located (this is mentioned in the FBI report, don’t have the page number handy right now)
Another case of mysteriously missing evidence: thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/299749-clinton-email-boxes-missing-evidence-of-tampering-report
Even after all that, Comey effectively read a detailed indictment for an hour, before concluding that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring such a case. This conveniently ignores other cases, where people were convicted under much milder circumstances (also without intent) – e.g. Brian Nishimura and Lyle White.

And even more concerning is the interference into the investigation by the DOJ, not least the suggested “quid pro quo” of more FBI posts overseas for changing the classification on some of the more incriminating emails: theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/the-quid-pro-quo-on-hillary-clintons-emails/504422
Or the potential bribe to an FBI official on the case: http://www.wsj.com/articles/clinton-ally-aids-campaign-of-fbi-officials-wife-1477266114
Or the Lynch-Clinton meeting on the tarmac (where apparently everyone was sent out so they could discuss grandchildren and golf).
Or the stonewalling from the State Department about emails the *do* posses – even against court orders: judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/court-orders-new-clinton-email-production-september-13
Or Obama claiming he learned about her private server on the news – a lie: wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/31077

It just goes on and on, and it’s hard for any interested observer to keep on top of everything… As pointed out, there are parallels to climategate etc., but this is just a whole different ballpark and I can’t describe it as anything other than “banana republic”-esque.

one of the frustrations of Comey’s press conference is that he ought to have spent time discussing the precedents on intent that led him to his decision. He obviously provided lots of argument that seemed to support the opposite decision, but I presume that there are precedents and reasons to support the decision that he made. Just because he didn’t cite them, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. But his failure to adduce them has clouded the subsequent discussion.

IA definitely NAL,but my understanding is that one of the federal laws Hillary may have broken is mishandling of confidential information. My understanding also is that Congress specifically wrote this law specifically without a requirement to show intent, and that only negligence was sufficient for prosecution. In this case, Comey actually either misinterpreted, mislead, or rewrote the law when he said that she showed gross negligence, but that he could not show intent.

Acob & Phil
The general consensus is the statute as written by congress did not require a showing of intent. However, there is school of constitutional thought that all crimes must have a showing of “intent” (not withstanding the concept of “ignorance of the law is no excuse”). I vaguely recall, the requirement of needing to demonstrate intent was in one of Scalia’s dissents, though being in dissent, the concept hasnt gained enough traction.

That being said, setting up the server to hide her emails and to circumvent a secure system and instead use a non secure system clearly shows criminal intent, especially in light of the frequent Department of state admonishments to maintain security of all information including classified info.

Comey’s biggest hurdle (not withstanding the DOJ and the rest of the administration) is the ability to get a conviction. As evidenced by approximately 50% of the voting population that will vote for her today, there was no way to obtain an unbiased jury pool that will convict.

The claim that every criminal prosecution requires the establishment of “intent” or motivation is prima facie incorrect. Traffic violations, such as speeding, is an example. Involuntary manslaughter another.

Here is a simpler explanation of how Huma’s emails ended up stored on Anthony’s computer

Huma and Anthony are obviously in a marriage of convenience. Anthony was a congressman in his own right BEFORE he was introduced to Huma (apparently by the Clintons).

It is likely that Anthony acted as all-round adviser to Huma and through her to Hillary, particularly after Anthony had to resign his seat. With Anthony at the backend, Huma was able to bring much greater political sophistication and, crucially, much more “bandwidth” to her work for Hillary. Effectively, Anthony became a known but unacknowledged senior aide to Hillary. This also explains the extravagant payment mechanisms set up for Huma.

Unlike Huma, Anthony probably may have disliked the inherent limitations of browser-based webmail and preferred to use local client software such as Microsoft OUTLOOK which he set up himself using the password provided by Huma for her clintonemail.com account. Thereafter, all Huma’s emails were automatically downloaded to and cached on Anthony’s PC by Outlook.

My wife spent much of her career in Ethics related roles for the Canadian Gov and this is almost exactly the term she used. It has been so depressing watching these vital aspects of good governence get swept aside.

When the election results came down tonight I was in China and the general concensus among my colleagues over lunch was quiet admiration
for a system
that self corrects and hope for such a system
in China one day.

Indeed, Donald Trump’s victory looks like a David vs an Establishment Goliath (the Con-sensus) one. Now let’s see IF and how it actually is going to unfold. Example: can H. Clinton or any of her Secretary of State “e-mail inner crowd” still be indicted in the coming months?

Example: can H. Clinton or any of her Secretary of State “e-mail inner crowd” still be indicted in the coming months?

Wouldn’t it be better if Donald Trump concentrated on the real problems of American society and left trivialities like this behind. For example, Trump has promised to bring back the jobs that have been lost to trade and technology. That will be a huge problem for him and one that will take precise and delicate administration. Eastern coal mining has been hard hit by the widespread availability of cheap natural gas due to fracking. Trump has promised to return eastern coal miners to work. However, he is also for fracking. These two positions are incompatible It will be interesting to see how he squares this circle. Who are the eastern coal miners going to sell their coal to after Trump gets them back to work?

As another example, artificial intelligence technology has woken up from its long slumber and is poised to make dramatic inroads into employment. IBM is pushing Watson for various and widespread applications. I’m retired now but I can remember taking my reports down to the typing pool to be made presentable for higher management. These were large rooms full of young women on typewriters. I’ve often wondered where young women of today get jobs now that that role has largely disappeared. Desktop word processing allowed the company I worked for to make their job responsibilities part of mine. The company had a travel booking office and the departmental secretary used to book our flights. Not any more, we do it on the web. We had an admin staff of about 20 supporting our site, there is now one full time and one part time. The full time also supports the executives. Technology has replaced all of these jobs and is poised to replace many more. How can Trump regain those jobs. This is an issue far more important than a few Emails that were classified after the fact.

That IS A REAL PROBLEM. The Clintons were demonstrating (are demonstrating) that the laws are only for the “little” people. And no country can survive without equal application of the law. PERIOD. The alternative is a tin plated dictatorship, which we were rapidly becoming.

A lot of the problems are due in partial to the fact that there were 2 standards, 2 different sets of rules, and 2 classes of people. It is a major issue and has to be dealt with.

I should have added that a large number of people displaced by technology found work in call centers. These jobs , in turn, were shipped overseas. A real Donald trump example – right. Bring the jobs back to teh US. Well IBM’s Watson can be used to answer natural language queries for call center applications. Those American jobs will be filled by a few servers in some IBM data center. Watson can even study the documentation and come up with the ansrs itself.

“Wouldn’t it be better if Donald Trump concentrated on the real problems of American society and left trivialities like this behind.” Oh, no. Part of what a lot of us are really angry about, is the politically powerful who seem to be above the law. Not trivial at all. Donald Trump needs to _clean house_.

“Hillary Clinton hasn’t and so instead of addressing real problems…” This is a _real problem_. You seem to have missed what led to Donald Trump’s victory: the conviction by a large part of America that the system and indeed the whole US Federal Government is rigged for the politically powerful and against them. He needs to clean house, that’s what we hired him for.

“example: can H. Clinton or any of her Secretary of State “e-mail inner crowd” still be indicted in the coming months?”

As MikeN mentioned, several have been given immunity and/or limited immunity, so that indicting will be difficult. From news accounts, it doesnt appear that the immunity extended to activities associated with the foundation which is where there appears to be substantial corruption and innurement to private individuals.

Secondly, Potus is likely to pardon most of the actors, as to whether such a pardon will extend to all crimes or just to the email crimes- we will just have to wait until Jan 20th to find out how far the pardons extend.

@Joe – I agree with your assessment, and especially the pardon. However, a president cannot pardon for “future” crimes, and since the Clinton foundation is ongoing, they have some hard decisions to make – none of them very palatable. Right now, it looks like their money laundering scheme is over and if they are smart, they will shut it down before the pardon.

You seem to have missed what led to Donald Trump’s victory: the conviction by a large part of America that the system and indeed the whole US Federal Government is rigged for the politically powerful and against them. He needs to clean house, that’s what we hired him for.

I am old enough to have clear memories of the Watergate hearings. My most vivid memory of that time was something that perhaps few others do. It was at the end of teh day during Haldeman’s testimony. The hearing was nearing its end for the day and the Senators were beginning to speak among themselves. Even though most of the Senators were distracted from the hearing, one Senator asked Haldeman a question. It was about an executive at a company that everyone reading this would recognize. Haldeman admitted that the White House had gone after him and tried to have him fired for working against Nixon.

None of the other Senators seemed to take any notice of this along with the press. However, it struck me as just how evil the Nixon administration was. They used the power of the US Federal Government to attack a man for exercising his First Amendment rights. The tried to destroy his life.Nixon violated the constitution and his oath in doing this. I thought at the time that if I was Judge Sirito, they would all being doing 30 years just for that.

So when I hear Trump and others in his circle boasting about locking people up and locking political opponents up, my mind goes back to that day in 1973 when I was watching the Watergate hearings on television. There is a slope here and that slope can become very slippery. Nixon went down it.

when I hear Trump and others in his circle boasting about locking people up

what boasts are you describing here? Can you be specific? As a real estate developer, Trump has not had the authority to lock people up and, while he had many imperfections in his past career, he has not actually “locked” anyone up and, despite making many boasts, hasn’t actually boasted about locking people up. Obviously, there were chants of “Lock her up” at his rallies and Trump has encouraged such chants. But the chants related to apparent obstruction of justice and/or mishandling of classified information, not exercise of First Amendment rights.

I agree that it is pernicious to use political power to penalize political opponents. In the climate area, there are too many examples. Jagdish Shukla and the RICO 20 are one example. The efforts of Mann and others to penalize Willie Soon are another.

I predict that Trump, in office, will not encourage or do anything to support prosecution of Hillary Clinton. I think that he’d prefer that those events be put in the past in order to move forward. Had Hillary won, I think that the obstruction of justice etc by Mills, Abedin and/or Hillary would have been at issue for years.

I realize that many commentators regard Trump as vengeful, but, for someone involved in litigation, as Trump was, it would be useful to have a reputation for vengefulness, since such a reputation would deter potential litigants. Trump’s a skilled negotiator and would understand the utility of such a reputation. I don’t know his history and it’s entirely possible that he is vengeful, but, when you’re dealing with a skilled dealmaker who is vulnerable to litigation, you have to realize the possibility of roleplaying.

TAG, the answer to where people get jobs to replace the many that were replaced by automation is that many of them don’t. They drop out of the labor force and are not counted in U.S. unemployment statistics. It’s not a new problem and I’m not sure what the solution is without embracing Luddite ideas. Additionally, in the early 1990s we outsourced much of our blue-collar labor overseas, gutting entire industries such as textiles. This was done with the notion that ours would become an “information economy” where workers would engage in high-value added pursuits, which obviously did not materialize. Not only did we fail to make the investments in education to make this a broad reality, it is doubtful that it could have happened even if we did. We need a base of unskilled and blue-collar employment for those who are not made out to become tech wizards.

“just how evil the Nixon administration was. They used the power of the US Federal Government to attack a man for exercising his First Amendment rights.” TAG, where have you been? You didn’t notice this happening routinely in the current administration, wielding the IRS and the Justice Department against political enemies. You didn’t notice it happening in Wisconsin as well, with special prosecutors abusing their power with bogus accusations and investigations trying to destroy Scott Walker until higher courts had to put a stop to it?
Pardon, but I’m finding your words confusing. First you want everyone to lay off the Clintons and get back to something important, then you pick an example from Watergate which is common practice today, and claim that it was uniquely evil and deserved severe punishment.
This is exactly the kind of abuse of power that I hope will be destroyed – and that you seem to think should be ignored.

The question of where people get jobs is not a concern of our republic under our constitution. The government’s job is to maintain the environment where free people will spontaneously endeavor on a plan to accomplish successful enterprises for the betterment of themselves, their family and their community. This environment includes such things as faith in the consistent rule of law, that already successful enterprises do not have a corrupting influence on government to protect their interests over newcomers to a market, and that if successful a right to retain the majority stake in ones own property rights will not be challenged by the society at large.

To add to Steve’s point regarding Trump’ encouragement (or non encouragment) of prosecuting Clinton – There is substantial credible public information demonstrating massive corruption with the Foundation along with the security leaks associated with the email scandal (not on the scale of the magic and purple codes) but security leaks that has caused a lot damage (most of which is not known at this time). Those actions deserve prosecution. That being said, such a prosecution with come across as vindictiveness against our political foes, and as such, will not present a good image, ie present the US as a banana republic. In spite of all Nixon’s crimes, Ford’s pardoning of Nixon was the right thing to do – in order to move on, not withstanding it was one of the major factors in Ford’s election loss.

Secondly, attempts at prosecuting Hillary, as richly as she deserves prosecution will only further divide the political divisions. That being said, restitution and/or stripping Clinton of her many ill gotten financial gains would be appropriate.

Wouldn’t it be better if Donald Trump concentrated on the real problems of American society and left trivialities like this [Clinton email] behind.

If you are saying Trump should not put pressure to prosecute I agree. If you are saying she should be pardoned I disagree. Unlike Nixon, who resigned, she almost one the election. There needs to be consequences if there were illegalities in that process. In Watergate the presidents men went to jail, Mitchell, Haldeman and Ehrlichman and others except Dean, who cooperated early.

I suspect the email issue is over. Comey has said it is. The problem now is the Clinton Foundation, which is something that needs to be looked at very closely. The Clintons have raked in tens of millions of dollars from foreign donors by selling access, influence and favors. This all started in Bill Clinton’s campaign of 96. Remember Johnny Chung, Charlie Trie, John Huang, and Maria Hsia? Remember VP Gore going to a Buddhist temple to collect cash? The problem then, is that Janet Reno refused to name a special prosecutor to investigate. Now we have Loretta Lynch doing the same thing in protecting the Clintons. That will change under Trump.

In enriching themselves the way they have, the Clintons are setting a bad precedent. American politicians can now leave office and go around the world selling favors with impunity because the Clintons have done it on such a huge scale. This is the kind of stuff that gets the hackles of career people at the FBI up. I imagine Obama is looking to cash in also. It’s always gone on, but the level the Clintons have taken it to is unprecedented. It is simply a terrible idea to allow foreigners to by influence in the United States.

@Potterton – The email issue is not over. What Comey said was that no one would prosecute it, but that the law had been broken. I agree with him under the current DOJ. But under the new one, that may well (and should) change.

Pottereaton, Comey was only investigating the presence of classified information on the private eMail server. That existed as the FBI found however Comey for some reason elided a need for intent. Now, he could have inferred intent, he has in previous cases when he was a prosecutor, but chose, despite significant evidence to the contrary, to find none.

What has not been addressed at all by the FBI although they have assembled evidence on, is the issue of Perjury and Obstruction of Justice. On this last it is worth recalling the Martha Stewart case of 2004, she was investigated for insider trading (as I recall), and was ultimately cleared of that; but she was tried and convicted on charges of lying to the FBI and of Obstruction of Justice; and served 5 months in prison for that.

The evidence assembled by the FBI makes it perfectly clear that Clinton is guilty of Perjury with regard to swearing on oath that she had released all relevant eMails related to her term as Sec State; the FBI recovered numerous eMails NOT originally released that were pertinent. Perjury is usually regarded as a serious crime, especially for a lawyer. She’s also clearly guilty of Obstruction of Justice, 3 March Congress issues a subpoena for the eMails; on or about 25 March 33,000+ emails were deleted and wiped by her staff and contractors who were aware of the existence of the subpoena. Open and shut case on those dates.

With dues respect to the need to close it off and go forward, I’d be strongly inclined to make an issue of this on the basis that respect for the law and the equal application of the law is too important to ignore and an example is needed. A special prosecutor or Grand Jury should be appointed to investigate in a fair and unbiased manner. Make the exercise of equality before the law real again; otherwise there will always be a lot of lingering disquiet over the fact that because of “influence” one person can with impunity, break laws that others in less exalted positions are punished harshly for.

Ed and Phil: I tend to agree that the investigation should continue, although it will be considered piling on after she was punished by the election results. Justice should be blind. If she is not investigated, others guilty of similar crimes will use it in their defense and claim selective prosecution. The destruction of emails under subpoena was classic Clinton criminality. It’s Trump’s AG’s call, but I suspect she will be pardoned by Obama for these crimes before any action against her can be taken.

As for perjury, Bill Clinton avoided prosecution for that after lying to a federal judge. But then, Janet Reno was AG during that whole mess.

The question I have is whether Obama will preemptively pardon both Hill and Bill for everything including the Foundation machinations, which one wag called “two-way bribery:”

I have no idea what will happen. I do know the Uranium One deal is a stinking fish in the middle of the room. That took a consortium of high administration officials to get through and it makes you wonder how much lobbying and arm-twisting the Clintons had to do to get everyone to sign off. That one could even implicate Obama. Hillary strongly opposed and voted against those kinds of sales of uranium reserves when she was in the Senate.

Ed, you say: “perfectly clear that Clinton is guilty of Perjury with regard to swearing on oath that she had released all relevant eMails related to her term as Sec State; the FBI recovered numerous eMails NOT originally released that were pertinent”.

As distasteful as I find the destruction of emails, I don’t think that it’s “perfectly clear” that Hillary’s statement was perjury. She delegated the cull of emails to subordinates, gave them terms of reference that on paper required them to release all relevant emails. It’s far from “perfectly clear” IMO.

And of course a version of the “stupid crooks” phenomenon, or at least a lesson in the difficulty of keeping things secret – several slipups including that somehow Weiner became suspected of sexual suggestions to someone legally underage in law.

Suggestions as to how emails ended up on someone else’s computer, and your phones flakey behaviour, emphasize the undependability of most software. Automatic synching to someone else’s computer you use for a few minutes is dangerous. (Just transferring photos from my smart phone to my computer results in a request for permission, albeit obscurely worded – I checked what the lingo meant before agreeing. Of course one could carelessly agree, forgetting one is not on own computer.)
As for a backup folder being named “life insurance”, one security tactic is to use misleading folder names (though someone snooping for personal reasons would notice that title before non-personal words), though the claim was discredited later.

As for knowing the rules of office, I think that a basic view of ethics and security is essential, amplified and reinforced by experienced officials and lawyers. (When in doubt ask them, instead of being cavalier – though here deliberately insecure actions seem to be the case, I can’t believe people like Clinton would be so stupid as to be ignorant of proper correspondence procedures. More recently of course the case of EPA officials should have been a warning flag to Clinton’s circle.

Recall that Nixon tried to use the IRS to harass his opponents; but the IRS wouldn’t do so. Recall also that Obama used the IRS to actually harass those who might oppose his re-election, and very successfully. In fact, he didn’t so much have to direct them to do so but merely provide cover while they did so at least in part off their own bat. And what’s worse, years after the start, they’re still doing so despite federal judges ordering it to stop.

There’s no real comparison between Nixon and Obama when it comes to using the state to attack his opponents. Nixon tried, failed, and fell spectacularly; Obama tried, succeeded, and got away with it scot free.

Gotta go with TAG here. Don’t remember this much concern about the missing 22 million emails when Bush was President. As I recall, quite a few FOIA requests couldn’t be satisfied over that one.

And Steve, I’ll cut you some slack here, being from up north, but taking the 5th is not an indication that there is “something to see” relevant to his investigation. It isn’t probable cause.

I will agree with you that Trump will probably not go after Clinton. According to an advisor on the news this AM, that entire campaign was pretty much theater. But with Trump, I’d feel better if I had a pardon.

“the missing 22 million emails when Bush was President”. You want an investigation about it, go ahead. I imagine that there wasn’t much indication of a cover-up; there are lots of ways that things get lost. Here we know there was a cover-up, with people using BleachBit and smashing things with hammers, and documented intentional lying.
This was an egregious example of corrupted power and people above the law, and you don’t earn yourself any points by trying to ignore it and excuse it by claiming (with little real evidence) that others did it too.

That is because there were no missing emails. AFTER the fact (after the administration was completed), emails were removed, NOT during the administration. They were removed through normal routine cleaning. None were under FOIA or under the retention limits when the action was taken.

And that is why you did not “hear” about it. Because it is not on point or relevant.

Besides weakening the Presidency by reducing the zeal of his staff, it must also be obvious that the institution of the independent counsel enfeebles him more directly in his constant confrontations with Congress, by eroding his public support. Nothing is so politically effective as the ability to charge that one’s opponent and his associates are not merely wrongheaded, naive, ineffective, but, in all probability, “crooks.” . . .

Only someone who has worked in the field of law enforcement can fully appreciate the vast power and the immense discretion that are placed in the hands of a prosecutor with respect to the objects of his investigation. Justice Robert Jackson, when he was Attorney General under President Franklin Roosevelt, described it in a memorable speech to United States Attorneys, as follows:

“There is a most important reason why the prosecutor should have, as nearly as possible, a detached and impartial view of all groups in his community. Law enforcement is not automatic. It isn’t blind. One of the greatest difficulties of the position of prosecutor is that he must pick his cases, because no prosecutor can even investigate all of the cases in which he receives complaints. If the Department of Justice were to make even a pretense of reaching every probable violation of federal law, ten times its present staff will be inadequate. We know that no local police force can strictly enforce the traffic laws, or it would arrest half the driving population on [487 U.S. 654, 728] any given morning. What every prosecutor is practically required to do is to select the cases for prosecution and to select those in which the offense is the most flagrant, the public harm the greatest, and the proof the most certain.

“If the prosecutor is obliged to choose his case, it follows that he can choose his defendants. Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than cases that need to be prosecuted. With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him. It is in this realm – in which the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass, or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense, that the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies. It is here that law enforcement becomes personal, and the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with the predominant or governing group, being attached to the wrong political views, or being personally obnoxious to or in the way of the prosecutor himself.” R. Jackson, The Federal Prosecutor, Address Delivered at the Second Annual Conference of United States Attorneys, April 1, 1940.

JTK551, if Hillary wants to claim selective prosecution as her defense she is welcome. All agree that politically motivated prosecution is wrong. We have a method to keep it fair and independent; the special prosecutor.

Using a special prosecutor has some merit – supposed independence, yet they will often run amok. Remember Patrick Fitzgerld (?) chasing Scooter Libby, even after he knew that Armige (sp?) was the source of the Plume leak.

There is also the instance where the prosecutor turns a blind eye on behalf of whom he likes, and uses his discretion to the benefit of cronies, his own advantage, etc. This is the other side of the coin. No high flown language here, what?

As a lawyer (don’t practice criminal law, however. Up to this point, I have refrained from commenting because of my lack of criminal law practice background) I agree with Phil Howerton’s Nov. 7 comment about the whole matter stinking to high heaven. What Clinton did may be what is called the crime of unauthorized use of property in Ohio (RC 2913.04) It is typically a fourth degree misdemeanor.

Also, one basic idea should be very clear. Whatever the federal secrecy statutes are, it SHOULD be criminal for high government officials who routinely deal with classified materials to take their official communications to a private server. (Personally, I would think that the gross negligence statute,at least, should have been invoked. Couldn’t find it, but there is a reference to it here. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3447826/posts)

One poster can’t imagine a modern prosecutor with integrity, another thinks calling them “special prosecutor” fixes everything. That makes no sense.

Although Comey isn’t a prosecutor, he had been. In fact, he at one time was the Deputy AG under Bush, a political appointment in a Republican administration. Not aware of any misconduct by Lynch.

Again, where is all the outrage over the Bush emails? Where is the outrage over Powell and Rice, who were also noted as having sent classified info in emails?

Steve thinks Clinton was trying to hide her “records”. Wasn’t that what Powell was doing, in his own words? Anything Clinton sent to or received from State.gov was on their servers. Printing out emails to hand over wasn’t passive-aggressive, it was the way the State Dept designed the archiving. Awfully inefficient, but not Clinton’s idea.

JTK551 “Again, where is all the outrage over the Bush emails? Where is the outrage over Powell and Rice, who were also noted as having sent classified info in emails?”

A) Rice was not known to send any classified emails using her personal emails
B) Powell did send classified information via his personal email, though it was infrequent.
C) Hillary sending classified emails was on a massively large scale
D) Hillary set up the private server to hide the corruption

Ah yes, claiming the ability to read minds. If that was true, why didn’t she have somebody delete the “corruption” emails after being read? And why not have a State.gov account for State Dept business, and a private email for “corrupt business”?

If we are supposed to think that this is outrageous, what is the magic number we will get outraged about? Powell did less business on email and more on phone. What was said by him on the phone? We don’t know.

So what is the magic number? That which Clinton sent, of course. And none of them, that she sent or received were properly marked as classified. The little “c” isn’t sufficient. It was supposed to be marked as a header.

The truth is that if we broadened the scope, we could claim “criminal” conduct against a lot of govt officials. If we are serious about FOIA, why not just put it all out on the web to start with. Try to run a govt that way.

JTK 551 “And none of them, that she sent or received were properly marked as classified. The little “c” isn’t sufficient. It was supposed to be marked as a header.”

JTK – In order for your response to have merit – you have to argue that as sec of state that she did not have the intellectual capacity to understand what is classified info. You cant argue she lacked the intellectual capacity to understand what is classified info and what wasnt yet she had the intellectual capacity to be a great president.

She had a security clearance – you cant get a security clearance if you are dumb.

“In order for your response to have merit – you have to argue that as sec of state that she did not have the intellectual capacity to understand what is classified info. ”

That’s just silly. I have the “intellectual capacity” to understand a myriad of things I don’t know about. And the process of classification is not objective, but very much subjective. Many times it is about bureaucratic butt covering. So not knowing what somebody else will later declare to be classified says nothing about her intellectual capacity.

JTK551 – “That’s just silly. I have the “intellectual capacity” to understand a myriad of things I don’t know about. And the process of classification is not objective, but very much subjective. Many times it is about bureaucratic butt covering. So not knowing what somebody else will later declare to be classified says nothing about her intellectual capacity.”

JTK – she had the top level or near top level security clearance
she was a lawyer
Welseyen Graduate
Yale Graduate
Secretary of State of the United States

Are you trying to argue she was not smart enough to know what should be or should not be classified. Seriously?

JTK The person responsible for improperly setting up email accounts was not running for the Presidency. From what I can tell from your link, the communications were all domestic and national security was not at issue. Additionally, all of the emails were found and turned over to the Obama administration. (As opposed to Clinton destroying emails.) Apparently, no substantial wrongdoing was uncovered.

Notwithstanding, the points I have made, of course, all official emails need to be made on government accounts.

Jeepers. Several FBI investigations, involving dozens of agents, considering criminal charges. Nothing to see really.
I know that this has been the standard line of the Democratic Party about this issue all year, but who in his right mind could think this way?

The vox article agrees that HC broke the law. It just excuses her in various ways:
She was Secretary of State, others did it, the law is b.s., so forth. It is actually a call for votes for Hillary four days before the polling. It’s obviously a partisan piece probably paid for by the Clinton Foundation. My guess concerning the Clinton Foundation is that it shuffles $ around through a money laundering operation controlled by their attorneys. Privileged, you see. The money is transferred through the law firm to another party who actually runs the laundering operation. Clean hands and privilege all around.

And yeah, I know, lawyers aren’t supposed to do things like that. Except I know better.

Steve: Just like Breaking Bad, except in this case: #BetterCallCheryl Mills.

According to an internet source, the USSC ruled in 2002 that an attorney in official capacity does not enjoy privilege. For example, White House Counsel does not enjoy privilege. Nor does US State Department official counsel.

The House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform has broad subpoena powers. These are at the discretion of the committee chairman. The present chairman has sworn to pursue the investigation of Hillary Clinton and this spells bad trouble for her, hubby Bill, the Clinton Foundation their whole political apparatus. This puts Hillary and her whole following in desperate straights. I expect the Trump bashing campaign of the media to continue, as it is orchestrated in large part by the Clinton crowd through the Clinton Foundation and payments disbursed through attorneys.

If investigations are not somehow derailed, I expect to see dark secrets turn up, the likes of which have not been seen since Watergate. It could be much worse, imo. Much more widespread.

When the IPCC wanted to be as unhelpful as possible when they had no choice but to provide me with comments, they sent me a print copy rather than a digital file. I am convinced that the same applied here. If Hillary had wanted to be as helpful as possible, she would have accompanied her print output with a thumb drive containing the pst file. You’re not going to convince me otherwise.

Do we know that Rice sent classified info by email? I don’t recall seeing that.

I agree that Powell was hiding his emails. On the other hand, if Powell had run for President and if their sending of classified info in email was known to their Democrat opponent, would their opponent have raised the issue against them? I’m inclined to think that it would have been used against him.

I am certainly no expert on email systems or the handling of classified information, but I think it’s crucial to remember that Powell became SoS eight years before Clinton. I am also not an IT expert, but my understanding was that the email system and computer system in general at State when Powell started really s*cked, which is one of the reasons he used his private email. My understanding also is that Powell realized this and spent a lot of money and ordered thousands of computers to upgrade the State department systems.

Even if there were still problems with the email/computer system at State when Clinton became SoS, they still had a vastly improved and upgraded system than when Powell first started. So for Clinton to claim that her use of private email is no different than Powell using his is comparing apples to bicycles.

No one here acknowledges similar past events. That’s why I question the sudden “outrage”. More likely they don’t like Clinton and want to use the power of the state to get her, rather than being impartially outraged at any facts.

551, see link provided by JDOhio above. This is the criminality of Hilary, or one of them. Trump will have his own Justice Department and I predict the departure of James Comey from the FBI.
It’s now a question of law, not “outrage” as you characterized the issue.

Not sure what about said link denotes criminality. When we are only concerned about supposed “criminality” when it is our political opponents, well, don’t take my word for it, read what Scalia says.

People are outraged at Comey because he didn’t give them the answer they wanted. I get nervous when the President elect has a history of promising to jail their political opponent. Lots of conservatives did as well.

Conmey was explicit. It is clear that he ignored the law. I suggest that you re-read the link. He also says that no one in the current Department of Justice would prosecute Hilary, which I feel sure is true.

It’s clear that Hilary will have to face the music. You can call it what you like, but it seems pretty clear that she is criminally liable under the referred law (criminal negligence).

Actually, your link makes clear that he didn’t ignore the law. He spent quite a while discussing it and why he didn’t recommend prosecution. You are free to think that we would be better off without prosecutorial discretion, but that isn’t what the traditions of this nation are. Don’t listen to those who you think are Clinton’s defenders, listen to Scalia and his fellow conservatives. Are they Hillary sycophants as well?

Steve: You say that COmey “spent quite a while discussing it and why he didn’t recommend prosecution.” Actually, he didn’t. If he had done so, I suspect that all of our comments would be more insightful. In his remarks, he mostly laid out a case for prosecution and then elected not to do so. It would have been much better if he had reviewed the cases and arguments on intent which led him not to prosecute. Clearly he had such cases and arguments in mind, but didn’t elucidate them.

551, right, Comey explained why he was not enforcing the law. Pretty weak rationale (as in he cited that he knew of only one instance wherein the law was enforced). The statute is on the books for me, even if Comey rationalized his failure to enforce it. It should not take a resolution of congress affirming that the law is enforceable and should be enforced. Not with Trump in the WH.

JTK551, that mediamatters/”past history” example is 100% apples and bicycles. Not even in the same ballpark.

We know that HRC routinely handled already-classified info in her private email system, directed staff to print said emails on non-secure systems, directed unqualified staff to enter a SCIF, ordered markings be *removed* from email in at least one case, etc. There was explicit executive orders from POTUS and extensive training on what was classified info. I’ve provided some of the documentation for this above. None of this is a matter of subjective opinion.

The past situations, as noted even in the article you quote, involved information which was not just unmarked at the time (that actually doesn’t matter, again as documented above) but was NOT at the time considered classified by anyone involved, including POTUS (who is the ultimate responsible party for setting such policies.)

To argue otherwise, as HRC and her associated media friends do, is simply to muddy the waters… or at best illustrates the heart of the issue: HRC routinely demonstrated a callous and intentional disregard for an amazing variety of national security procedures.

Can you honestly claim that removing markings from email, or sending a maid into a SCIF, is an accidental breach?

How about the timeline that Steve has so carefully exposed about deletion of information? A mere accident?

Ok, looked up the incident. Apparently she was waiting for a list of talking points, maybe some she had to deliver, or somebody else did or was going to, and the secure fax was out of service. So she had them obscure the markings and sent by regular fax.

JTK “talking points” which were CLASSIFIED. We don’t get to know what they were.

The whole point of classified info is that it must be carefully protected.

Just out of college I had friends who worked on classified info in Silicon Valley. They were astounded at their classified working environment:
– No windows
– No plants
– No food in/out
– No equipment in/out without going through a whole rigamarole
– Etc etc etc.

“How about the timeline that Steve has so carefully exposed about deletion of information? A mere accident?”

When one uses hindsight to create an interesting set of facts, one has to be careful not to cherry pick. Let us assume she was up to no good from the start. Is this how she would have designed things and acted? I doubt it highly. Makes no rational sense.

Steve speculates that Huma somehow accidentaly backed up her clintonemail acct to Weiner’s laptop. That’s what I thought as well. And what nefarious emails were recovered?

We don’t know. Huma appears to have been a major contact for the Clinton Foundation and her emails would be relevant to investigation of the Clinton Foundation. Classified emails were a small percentage of Hillary’s emails and I suspect that this was true of Huma’s as well. Plus overlap between classified emails on Wiener’s computer and Hillary’s server.

Fortunately the law is not based upon your doubt. And crimes usually do not make rational sense. But the bottom line is – was a law broken. Comey said yes. The evidence points to it. Maybe it was just supreme stupidity on the Clinton’s part (which then begs the question on how she could be the smartest woman in the world – but that is a non sequitur). But the answer between criminal and stupid is not part of the legal process (most law enforcement will tell you that criminals for the most part are stupid – at least the ones caught).

But the criminal trial is where you argue stupidity. And unless you are a juror, your doubts are worthless.

No, they had private email accounts. But so far, no evidence (you know the stuff that showed over 100 classified emails on Clintons server and 3 clearly marked on her server – evidence) has been found to show ANY emails from previous SOS on their private account that were SOS business.

Very impressive investigative work, Steve (and the deflate-gate affair). You should be a sought-out expert witness.

One interesting aspect of this election is how far off the polls were — done by assumed professional/unbiased entities. There must be major sampling/statistical problems in these polls to be off so much…

They are not off by much. Polls were Clinton +3, and the end result when all ballots are counted is likely to be Clinton +1 or +2. A very good job by polls.
People tended to ignore the large undecided number to declare Clinton the likely winner.

@MikeN – first, the “final” Popular vote will never be known. Once a state determines one candidate has won, they quit counting (think of all those absentee ballots that get thrown in the trash). Second, at BEST, hillary will have a point (dot) something margin. It will not be 1 or 2% (which would translate into 1.2 – 2.4 million votes.

Not thrown away – at least not for the lawful retention period. But not really counted either. In some places (the city next door), there was a tight mayoral race where they counted every absentee ballot to determine the winner. In my jurisdiction, the house was called as soon as the polls closed and the state went by 5 points to Hillary. So while the absentees were counted next door (I am not sure they counted them for anything other than the mayoral race), there was no need to in this jurisdiction.

But they are required to be kept for a specified amount of time. Just no one is going to waste the time opening and tallying them when the outcome will not be affected.

One interesting aspect of this election is how far off the polls were — done by assumed professional/unbiased entities. There must be major sampling/statistical problems in these polls to be off so much…

the polls are obviously interesting to someone with statistical interests.

The national polls had Hillary up by 2-3% by the end, whereas they were even. It’s not like the polls said that Hillary was going to get 75% and Trump 18%.

The polls were most strongly off in battleground states with little Hispanic influence: Ohio, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin… Ohio, in the end, wasn’t even a battleground state.

Hillary ran stronger than expected in Nevada, Arizona and some other places.

Turn-out by black voters was measurably less for Hillary than for Obama.

When the two candidates are evenly balanced, changes of a few percent have large consequences in a winner-take-all system.

The reports on polls don’t show us how they calculate the percentage of voters showing up. I suspect that one can easily go from poll results to election results by (1) slightly higher (Clinton-supporting) turnout among Hispanics than projected; (2) markedly lower (Clinton-supporting) turnout among black voters; (3) higher turnout combined with Trump switch among white proletariat in battleground states.

I also suspect that the polls may have underestimated the effect of campaigning. The discrepancies are largest in battleground states where campaigning was most intense. National polls would be too coarse to pick up changes at the edges of battleground states. Hillary appears to have mainly relied on advertising and was far less active than Trump in old-fashioned rallies. Trump had far more rallies in the battleground states and clearly out-worked Hillary on the campaign trail by a large margin. Hillary made surprisingly few campaign appearances. Her rally schedule, when you look at it, was amazingly light.

The campaign fascinates. Trump, the outsider with no political background or base, wins the presidency doing it his way, and with half the strength of his party aligned against him or offering feeble support. The voters had a chance to express their disgust with the system.

Concerning polling, the situation was very fluid in the last week or so before the election. I do not see how any really accurate polling could be accomplished in the circumstances. Anyway, 2-3% is as close as one can reasonably expect.

One voting statistic which I cannot find but should be interesting, is the total votes cast, nationwide and also state by state, of the the vote total for Republican candidates for the House of Representatives. This total should approximate Trump’s popular vote totals. Any discrepancy shown by such a comparison would be interesting, imo.

her light schedule was most likely due to a combination of
1) belief she was ahead in the polls
2) belief that her direct advertising, tv ads would out do the rallies (note that she was not drawing crowds
3) and lastly the risk of another medical episode and the need for rest. (aside from the stumbling, etc, she doesnt come accross to me as being very vigorous or remotely healthy)

The white vote is a little different. Trump did slightly worse than Romney among white voters. He did better among blacks and Hispanics. He did worse among college educated whites and better among non-college whites. Turnout was way up in the last group. It can be seen at the county level comparisons, for example in southeast Ohio, one small county goes from Romney +1000 to +11000.

Another factor is early voting, which does not exist in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Nevada was won based on early voting and the strong Harry Reid machine.

Steve, the poll results themselves are subject to adjustment. There was a article where they gave the same raw numbers to different pollsters and received back a range from Trump +2 to Hillary +4, as the main reported number.
I also wonder about the impact of illegal voting. If pollsters have a likely voter screen that is eliminating people who are ineligible to vote, and the reality is that a certain percentage of voters are illegally voting for Hillary than the poll will understate Hillary’s support.

Wikipedia says Nature is UK owned, but I am not sure how a US Republican administration affects the efficacy of a class action. The standing to sue would be in those who could show they were damaged; that’s the catch.

The new administration might consider appointing a new president of the NAS as Marcia McNutt has been a transparent crusader against climate deniers during her reign as editor and chief of Science and also as President Obama’s personal adviser on climate.

Steve M, if you create a White House petition calling on the NSF to require public archiving in a timely manner of all climate research data I think you would have a 1000 instant signers. (But wait to January 19th to mail it.)

If Trump means what he says, the whole global warming apparatus will be rooted out and jettisoned. Swamp drained, problem gone. Except for the rioters who are trying to burn down Portland, Berkeley, etc. But that’s a local problem.

The single most interesting election result:
The District of Columbia voted 92.8% for Clinton. The alligators will be snapping and thrashing about. It will be interesting to see how Trump deals with that.

Latin: a common law principle whereby judges will not sit in judgment of extremely minor transgressions of the law.
It has been restated as: the law does not concern itself with trifles.

In People v Durham, Justice Robert Steigmann of the Appellate Court of Illinois had before him Daniel Durham who did not like a traffic citation he had received and seeking $5 compensation:
“Litigation like this brings the judicial system into disrepute. Rational citizens (not connected to the law) would deem this appeal an utter waste of time and resources for all concerned. The time and money already spent bringing this appeal amounts to squandered resources. We will not be part of further squandering.
“The maxim de minimis non curat lex retains force in Illinois and is wholly applicable in this case. This maxim applies even to constitutional claims, and its function is to place outside the scope of legal relief the sorts of injuries that are so small that they must be accepted as the price of living in society rather than made a federal case out of.”

There was a case in Canada. Government budgets are kept secret until presentation in parliament or a provincial legislature. A television reporter obtained a pamphlet that had been prepared for distribution to the public for a budget of the provincial government of Ontario. He obtained and presented a report about it a couple of days before the budget was to be presented. The pamphlet was supposed to be secret until that time. He was arrested and charged with theft. The judge noted that the pamphlet was worth less than a cent and invoked the De Minimis principle.

A secret document had been obtained and released to the public. This was regarded as being so trivial as to be unworthy of notice by the law. In my opinion, the trivial examples given for this Clinton scandal are of the same magnitude.
My contention is that the same principle should be invoked for this issue. Any breach of confidentiality was trivial. The issue is political and pursuing it would have major harmful effects on fair elections and free speech.

Classified emails was one issue. Other issues were obstruction of justice (through destruction of emails) and the Clinton Foundation. It seems evident that most of the clintonemail emails were unclassified. It is my understanding that emails are classified by their content, rather than their markings, so that being marked classified after the fact is entirely moot. Clearly, if one were appointed to a highly sensitive job such as Secretary of State, one would have to assume that you might receive classified information which had not been properly marked and avoid the potential for compromise. So that whole line of argument seems invalid to me.

If you look at the requirements of the OF109 form, there are a variety of obligations which Hillary breached. I presume that the obligations arise not by signing the OF109 form, but that the OF109 form is a restatement of obligations under law.

Emails are not classified/unclassified. *Information* is classified… and is so for the most part by its very nature. It is the job of those with classified info access to know this — independent of any markings.

A simple analogy: music recordings and other published information is automatically copyright by its very nature. It does not matter if a copyright symbol is present.

Examples, as noted in my links above and elsewhere:
– All high level intergovernmental communications are automatically classified
– All information from military satellite and drone sources is classified
– etc.

Thus it is NOT true that the information was “classified after the fact.” The information was already classified. The emails were MARKED after the fact.

Re-read the agreements linked above. The information is classified in ANY form. Printed. Email. Verbal. A person breaks these laws by allowing an unauthorized person to read the information… or by mentioning it verbally in an open conversation.

And as I also already noted: HRC’s “excuse” that they were not marked is not an excuse. It is a further indictment:
– She and her team were supposed to recognize that it was classified data and treat it accordingly
– It was her JOB to actually ensure it became marked!

The fact that so much information had to be MARKED after the fact is a huge indictment of her competence in the arena of national security.

In fact, if they were talking points… is there evidence that these talking points were evaluated to ensure the audience had authority to hear about the the classified information being discussed?

MrPete – “Emails are not classified/unclassified. *Information* is classified… and is so for the most part by its very nature. It is the job of those with classified info access to know this — independent of any markings.

A simple analogy: music recordings and other published information is automatically copyright by its very nature. It does not matter if a copyright symbol is present.

Examples, as noted in my links above and elsewhere:
– All high level intergovernmental communications are automatically classified
– All information from military satellite and drone sources is classified
– etc.

Thus it is NOT true that the information was “classified after the fact.” The information was already classified. The emails were MARKED after the fact.”

MrPete

I am just dittoing your comment – pointing out the obvious – a point which seems to have alluded most of the Hillary defenders…(such as JTK551)

There was a case in Canada. Government budgets are kept secret until presentation in parliament or a provincial legislature.

That kind of “secret” is not at all similar. That’s more a question of privacy.

“Secret” in this case is a level of classification. All classified info is maintained in a completely separate set of information systems, and as noted above is *also* marked when declassified. Thus, the brochure you mention, if it had been once “Secret” as classified info, it would be released to the public with a bold “Declassified” across it, and appropriate other markings.

The interesting thing about this is:
a) A significant number of emails included Top Secret and even Special Access information. Nobody would argue these were safe for the unclassified internet. (There’s an entire parallel gov’t internet for classified communications.)
b) This does indicate a widespread problem of indiscriminate use in the State Department of open communication systems for information that is actually classified.

Here are two more principles I didn’t discuss in my post on background info above:

1) Keeping information safe is HARD.
2) Because of (1) you want as little classified info as possible

And here’s a conclusion: if it is so painful to use classified systems to get State Dept work done… they should change their systems or change their rules. To simply ignore the policies set in place for very good reasons is folly.

(I don’t have classified access, but I help people doing NGO-type work in hard parts of the world to function effectively. Same exact issues apply.)

That kind of “secret” is not at all similar. That’s more a question of privacy.

“Secret” in this case is a level of classification. All classified info is maintained in a completely separate set of information systems, and as noted above is *also* marked when declassified. Thus, the brochure you mention, if it had been once “Secret” as classified info, it would be released to the public with a bold “Declassified” across it, and appropriate other markings

Budgets in Westminster parliamentary democracies are quite different than US budgets. New taxes and tax rate adjustments etc go into effect immediately upon presentation of the budget to Parliament. The government will present a bill to authorize the new measures but taxes will begin to be collected immediately. A budget leak is a serious matter since it could be used for unfair advantage in the stock market etc. There was an example in the UK in which Hugh Dalton the Chancellor was on his way into the Commons to present his budget in 1947 said to a reporter “Its a penny on a pint!”. He had to resign. In a Canadian example, the Minister of Finance had a press briefing the day before the budget was to be presented. he had a copy of the budget in his hands. One television camera operator was able to able to zoom in and get a readable image of some budget highlights on the first page of the document. The budget had to be changed overnight. Breaches of budget security are taken very seriously

If Hillary’s courtroom defense wants to claim that her and her staff’s national security breaches were de minimis they are welcome. But the manner in which the government documents on her server were withheld from the government as outlined above was not accidental, it was purposeful and over many acts reacting to many situations over many years prevented their full preservation. There were no “mistakes” that caused her not to use state.gov server and not turn over all intermingled emails for the government to sort for official archiving, or not turning over any emails for three years (until a congressional investigation finally put together that the Dept. of State was not just stonewalling but really possessed no documents). It was not a mistake that after being ordered preserved the emails her staff cleaned them and bleached the server they came from.

But I think everyone agrees that the national security breaches and obstruction of justice were secondary to a very likely deeper criminality of using the office of Sec. of State for private dealing, but this does not make the collateral violations de minimis.

TAG, you attempt to minimize what HRC did with the emails in order to invoke the principle of de minimus non curat lex. To do so you would reduce the issue to a few emails w/ (c) markings and nothing else.

This is emphatically not true.

It is a fundamental point that whether the information is classified depends on its nature and source, not on whether it’s marked. HRC and all her staff signed forms explicitly acknowledging their awareness of this principle, their responsibility for applying it, and their criminal responsibility if they failed to apply it. Thus, every time Team Clinton prattled on about whether the emails were marked, they were engaged in strategic deception – SOP for them.

The fact that so much classified information made it from secure government networks onto HRC’s server is, in and of itself, proof of an intentional criminal act – thousands of them, in fact.

There is an air gap between the classified networks and the unclassified networks. You cannot electronically transmit emails or documents from the classified network to the unclassified networks. The reason for SCIFs and the rules surrounding them is to enforce this separation.

Therefore, to bridge the air gap with such frequency and in such volumes and with such sensitive information requires that someone intentionally transpose the information in some manual fashion. That does not happen by gross negligence. It is a willful, intentional criminal act, thousands of them in this case.

Sidney Blumenthal, who was not even a government employee or contractor and who had no security clearance of any kind, put extremely fresh and extremely highly classified SAP/SCI information in his AOL.com emails to HRC. http://observer.com/2016/03/hillary-has-an-nsa-problem/. Obviously, someone in government with access to SAP/SCI information provided it to him in real time – bridging the air gap. It is impossible for Blumenthal to have had this information without very serious intentional felonies having been committed.

HRC and her team very clearly violated the Federal Records Act, 18 USC 2071 by destroying thousands of work-related emails.

HRC and her team also very clearly violated the Federal Espionage Act. Comey and his team focused on 18 USC 793(f), which establishes criminal liability for gross negligence in the handling of national defense information. From other commentary and Congressional testimony, he and DOJ seem to believe that the gross negligence standard is constitutionally suspect. But there are criminal penalties for gross negligence, sometimes called criminal negligence, in all 50 states and they are routinely prosecuted, despite the imaginary constitutional prohibition on criminal liability for gross negligence, so that argument is absurd. But even if you read an intent requirement into the statute, or considered her liability under the other subsections of 18 USC 793 that require intent, a very strong case for intent can be shown for the reasons given above. Moreover, the vast multitude of blatantly false exculpatory statements made by HRC on the topic are sufficient proof of intent to support a conviction.

Finally, it has been reported that more than 5 hostile actors, presumably foreign intelligence services, hacked Hillary’s server. This was a very serious breach of information security enabled by HRC’s use of a private server and serial violations of a panoply of criminal statutes governing the use and transmission of classified information.

TAG, I keep hearing this argument that it is just a dispute over classification. It is possible that things that are considered unclassified would later be considered confidential, and things labeled confidential might be considered secret, and things secret might be top secret, and vice versa, but that doesn’t mean that top secret item will be unclassified, and not recognized as such by Hillary Clinton.

So you believe her statement to the FBI that she thought C) was paragraph alphabetical markings and not ‘confidential’?

Steve, I’m a firm believer in “A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still”. Not trying to convince anybody in particular of anything. Just trying to review the facts, and what a rational approach to the issue is.

Her having been the subject of many witch hunts, I doubt her lawyer was all that keen on “helping out”.

Folks here seem to not want to start with what the proper way to do these things was. They claimed to be upset that she was careless with sensitive info, but were also upset that her email server was wiped. Or that old phones were destroyed. They seem to be upset that she got to pick (or her reps) which emails to delete. But that was how the Dept of State worked. If you want to change that, do so. But not ex post facto.

You wanna now switch gears to the Clinton Foundation. Having a career prosecutor and FBI head say there is nothing there in the emails to get her, the witch hunt continues. And we don’t know that they aren’t already investigating now. Because, believe it or not, they’re supposed to be tight lipped. Where is all the concern about the leaks of sensitive information?

As for the claim that Comey didn’t explain, well the link is upthread and anybody can view it. It is the 1st 4 minutes. He didn’t give a seminar on Criminal Intent, but that wasn’t the forum. There may have been some documentation attached to the hearing record, I don’t know, or more in his initial report, but that would be irrelevant. The Republicans were upset they didn’t get the witch. And Google is your friend if you want to explore the issue of mens rea or criminal intent. I supplied a Scalia SC opinion, but nobody wants to engage because the witch got off.

“On the other hand, if Powell had run for President and if their sending of classified info in email was known to their Democrat opponent, would their opponent have raised the issue against them? I’m inclined to think that it would have been used against him.”

We aren’t talking about campaign rhetoric, we are talking about using the mechanisms of the govt to punish ones political opponents.

“We aren’t talking about campaign rhetoric, we are talking about using the mechanisms of the govt to punish ones political opponents.”

###

No not “we”, but you “are talking about..”. The rest of us are talking about seeing the law is properly enforced against someone who seems to have gotten away with it. If the Trump DoJ investigates thoroughly and clears her, fine. If she is prosecuted, you can add your voice to the chorus of protests. Imo, she is nailed bang-dead and maybe worse to come with a more complete investigation. I imagine that Bill and others also have a lot to hide.

“Finally, it has been reported that more than 5 hostile actors, presumably foreign intelligence services, hacked Hillary’s server.”

It’s also been reported that the moon is made of green cheese. I think there is about the same amount of evidence for both.

But we do know the Russians were in the State.gov email system. “It has been reported” that they may have been there as early 2006, so if true, that would cover the entire HRC SOS term. Where is the outrage?

JTK: You are suggesting that (a) there was no meaningful threat from foreign actors hacking HRC’s server because why … you don’t say, and (b) that it doesn’t matter anyway because Russia was already in the State Dept. systems.

Both propositions are nonsense but, even if they made sense, they contradict each other. If foreign intelligence services were successfully penetrating the State Dept. in 2006, are we to believe they would not also attack the personal email accounts of our top officials? No, we are not, because we knew in 2010 that China was attacking personal emails of top US officials. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/china-read-emails-top-us-officials-n406046. Yet Hillary, though doubtlessly advised of this, carried right on with Her Majesty’s Secret Server. Where, indeed, is the outrage?

If the US govt. knew the Russians had penetrated the entire Dept. of State system in 2006 and didn’t do anything, then heads ought to roll. But alas for your argument, the govt. did not stand around like a statue in response to Russian hacks. They responded. http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/10/politics/state-department-hack-worst-ever/index.html. Hillary, not so much. So yeah, it does make a difference whether you send SAP/TCI information over AOL or a private server as compared to the government’s classified information networks.

No, I’m not. You are. You are trying to edit my words to fit into your world view. Doesn’t work that way.

I can judge the sincerity of folks words by their actions. When they say it isn’t about the fact that they don’t like Hillary but about the fact that she had a private server for govt business or that there were potential security leaks, or that FOIA requests went unfulfilled, etc, I merely look at those things that happened prior, but about which, nary a peep.

Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I point them out. The response is, so what? That tells me all I need to know about your outrage. After glossing over all this, you proceed to “Yet Hillary”. Not rational or impartial, IMHO.

But you don’t have to be. My attraction to this website is because of well investigated and thought out comments by Steve on the Climate Change issue. When it is just “us vs them”, like this thread has devolved into, I find it boring. YMMV

I’ll just say, compare the years of investigations into Benghazi with the investigations into 9-11, or Intelligence failures prior to Iraq, or Khobar Towers. There is something completely out of whack there.

I’ll let that be my last word on the back and forth unless somebody is interested in a rational dialogue. In the meantime, I’ll return to lurking.

JTK551:
Yes I don’t much like Hillary. No that’s not why I’m upset that she ran
all her work emails through her own server, violated security protocols, and hid from FOIA requests. To the contrary, my distaste for the former SOS is because of these actions, other actions like these, and her disregard for the repercussions of her actions. Or to put even more plainly, her actions create my dislike.

You point out other things that other actors have done and expect us to excuse Hillary? No, we should condemn the wrong actions of others as well. There is a conversation that could be had about all the violations of security in the State Department, or about the avoidance of FOIA by SOS’s from the enactment of the statute until now, or … , but that is not what the post, nor this comment thread is about.

Mr McIntyre was posting about how the Clinton emails were deleted and potentially recovered via the Weiner laptop, citing a timeline that implies that Clinton staff & contractors destroyed information in violation of law & preservation orders. Your reference to not peeping about other (potential) violations of other laws at other times appears to be an attempt to distract from these particulars.

If you had started your comments with a caveat saying: ‘Yes, the email scandal is a serious breach of security and a violation of FOIA production which should rise to the level of prosecution, but …’ you might get a bit more traction with your “but He/She/They did it too/first/worse” line of argument. You didn’t.

As far as the:

“years of investigations into Benghazi with the investigations into 9-11, or Intelligence failures prior to Iraq, or Khobar Towers.”

is concerned, I don’t recall anything near this level of obstruction. delay, and obfuscation in those investigations. A lot of CYA excuses, but not years of delay in production.

I would indeed be interested in rational discussion. After reading your comments, I doubt you are.

“If you had started your comments with a caveat saying: ‘Yes, the email scandal is a serious breach of security and a violation of FOIA production which should rise to the level of prosecution, but …’ you might get a bit more traction with your “but He/She/They did it too/first/worse” line of argument. You didn’t.”

One of my interests is meta-discussion. I find it interesting that you think that we can’t enter into a rational discussion unless I begin with agreeing with you. The Facebook effect. Gotta “like” your post and wait for you to “friend” me. Not something that interests me. YMMV

YOu are merely proving my point. We don’t “know”. And of course neither of your links shows where we “knew” the moon was made of green cheese.

Your links show that they got in, but not what they got. And no one said they “knew” it was the most severe, only “sources said” which are the same ones that said there was nothing wrong with Hillary’s private server.

Lost in all this discussion is the real reason to continue to investigate and review the emails for classified information – to determine (assuming a wide scale breech) what classified information was exposed and what impact it would have.

Seems to me the term “classified” is a bit variable, perhaps used loosely.

My very limited knowledge is such documents are supposed to be labeled as such by the issuing agency, which in this case is Clinton or any staff with classified or higher clearances.

But there is a range of information that affects personal security. Crediting friend Earl with an example: suppose the SoS is meeting a foreign diplomat at a time and place revealed in an email – someone accessing emails might be able to arrange bugging or even assassination.

Short of that, the fact they are meeting could be a clue to activity, when combined with other information.

President Ford pardoned President Nixon. He did this so the country could move beyond Watergate and not be consumed by it. This was a very good thing to do. I would suggest that moving beyond the Emails would also be a good thing. I can see no benefit in this minute analysis of everything that Clinton and her associates did.

Remember, the incident that triggered Watergate was an attempted theft of Democratic National Committee files. The Russian intelligence services just did a similar thing in hacking DNC files and Emails. They did this in an attempt to sway the election. In doing so, they like the Watergate conspirators made the election less free. Somehow, this to me is more important than the Emails.

Supposedly Russian Intelligence; that WAS the Democrat’s preferred story because they wanted to tie it to Trump.

Actually unproven; and given the content, I’d say very much in the National Interest to have it exposed. The degree of coordination between the MSM, the DNC, and the Clinton Campaign was disgusting and certainly worth knowing. It was suspected, but unproven.

So the Hacking, whoever carried it out, actually made the election MORE free, not less, by exposing extremely bad faith actions by the DNC (priming the Clinton campaign with questions for example) and more generally, the degree of coordination between the MSM and the Clinton campaign. When it comes to information, typically more is better.

On Watergate, I think the main motivation wasn’t theft but attempts to place bugs on telephones. As I understand it they did so successfully but the bugs broke and needed replacement quite soon after, and it was this second attempt that was caught “red handed” as it were.

Selective leaks provide a self-interested picture and so distort the election. I would being up with some irony that the privacy of political actors, which is necessary for fair elections, was violated and that is seen by some as a good thing. Privacy and secrecy go hand in hand. Intrusion by foreign actors and self-interested US parties into private information is not a good thing.

Actually, if the MSM was doing its job and not being a cheerleader for the democrats, we would not have to worry about hacks and leaks. Because they would publish the stories without them, as they do with the Republicans.

You are correct that hacking (actually cracking) goes both ways and it is who gets got that screams the loudest. But I missed your outrage over the publishing of a 20 year old tax return for Trump without his permission.

I should have also referenced Marco Rubio’s comments on the hacking. He noted that disconcerting the Democrats amy seem to be a good thing but next time it could be the Republicans who are hacked. I have seen noted by former CIA types on television that Vladimir Putin was a KGB officer. According to them, he knows how to cultivate a source. Flattery leads to cooperation and that cooperation leads to blackmail

Selective, there were many, many thousands of eMails, all real emails despite the initial attempts to paint them as possible fakes. You mean you think there are thousands and thousands more that haven’t been released ? Or do you want to think that people can’t read email chains and understand a conversation ?

TAG, I get it that you really, really, don’t like the outcome and want to find excuses, but the Podesta eMails are real and they paint a disgusting picture that I would not want to associate with.

Good lesson for everyone about falling for phishing and NOT changing one’s email password properly.

Ugly beyond belief. Some of Podestas emails contain strange references which are claimed to be code words used by p_philia cultists. It’s on the web: pasta, ice cream, other plain language code words of special cult significance, so claimed.

What I found from teh Podesta Emails was their utter banality. Emails had disagreements among campaign officials about how to deal with Bernie Sanders and so forth. Just what would one expect. Even reporters were commenting on the banality of these revelations from Wikileaks and the Russian intelligence services. I recall reporters talking about extended Email chains dealing with the wording of individual tweets. just as one would expect from a campaign with lots of self-important people which is just like every other organization.

LOL! Yep, we would expect that. You only see what you look for. However, Bernie’s kids saw the party conspiring against them (as did most of the rest of the nation), and the media conspiring against them (giving Hillary questions in advance). Nothing illegal. Podesta is not that stupid. But lots of unethical behavior (there is no law that says a party has to adhere to its own rules).

Tens of thousands of emails in the Podesta email cache. While you focus on the banal ones, others focus on those with interesting revelations, TAG. Depends on what appeals to the reader, I suppose. We shall see if this fades from the news.

Ford also lost re-election (2 years later) because of the Pardon. Apparently the Country did not want to move on. If Obama wants to Pardon her, that is his prerogative. But he cannot pardon her for state crimes, or ongoing criminal activity. So she has to meet him part way – as in shut down the Clinton Foundation. If she does not, orange is the new black for her.

A comment with respect to the question of whether HRC’s private server was hacked, and by whom.

When dealing with truly expert “hackers,” their standard of professionalism is:

– They absolutely CAN break into any system you own that is connected to the online Internet
– They absolutely CAN do so without you discovering this to be the case
– The only question is: how long will it take

(And, eerily, it is often quite a bit shorter than “tech experts” imagine…)

Consider the implications of this with respect to national security information.

I hope it helps you understand why…

A) Of course we don’t know if or who breached her server

B) There is an “air gap” between the classified “internet” and even the internal non-classified let alone public Internet.

C) The real security battle is not over access to our secrets. The battle is over detecting that the other guys have breached our security perimeter, so it is time to move to Plan B so they don’t find anything when they get here. Once we make it easy to get to our secrets, we’ve already lost because there’s NO WAY we’ll know that they were here.

With so much information stamped “secret,” leaks to the media are inevitable. On October 4th, the New York Times reported on just that: the “growing phenomenon” of public but classified information.

“The older and larger drone program in Pakistan, for instance, is a centerpiece of American foreign policy, discussed daily in the news media — but it cannot be mentioned at a public Congressional hearing. The State Department cables published by WikiLeaks can be found on the Web with a few mouse clicks and have affected relations with dozens of countries — but American officials cannot publicly discuss them.”

One of the lesser repercussions of Hillary’s criminal behaviour. I doubt very much that Congress cannot discuss whatever it may please. I am heartened to learn that US officialdom, in the main, shows more sense of responsibly and better discretion in matters of national security than Hillary Clinton, when she was Secretary of State.

Petraus shared classified info with a person who had a security clearance (though not for the specific info he shared with her)

Clinton shared classified info with numerous individuals that did not have any level of security clearances, transmitted classified info over non secure internet, demonstrated a complete disregard for security, demonstrated a complete lack of comprehensiion of what is classified info

other than that – the video provides a good explanation of the differences between clinton and petraeus.

In January 2015, The New York Times reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department had recommended bringing felony charges against Petraeus for providing classified information to Broadwell. Petraeus denied the allegations and was reported to have had no interest in a plea deal.[199] However, on Tuesday, March 3, 2015, the U.S. Justice Department announced that Petraeus agreed to plead guilty in federal court in Charlotte, North Carolina to a charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified information.[200] In the 15 page statement of facts filed by the government along with the plea agreement, the government stated that Petraeus had provided Broadwell access to documents containing Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information, had later moved those documents to his personal residence and stored them in an unsecured drawer, and had deliberately and intentionally lied to Federal investigators about both providing Broadwell access to the documents and their improper storage. These facts were acknowledged to be true by Petraeus as part of his plea agreement.

And there was TSSCI information on Clinton’s email server, at least according to the FBI. A large number of people with ZERO security clearance had access to those eMails (her lawyers who deleted so many, IT Support people, Weiner….). I wonder why there wasn’t the same zeal to pursue a prosecution for Clinton ? They could have pursued a plea bargain deal with her…?

What do you think? Will O’bumma issue a pre-emptive pardon for Hillary? Does she want one? If Trump disclaims any intention to prosecute, can such a pardon be defended as justified? Lots of deep current here. Hillary accepting a pardon would seem as a confession. Trump has good reason to destroy the Clintons for they obviously mean to hamstring him through their powerful political machine. Interesting times.

Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch has called for the investigation of Hillary Clinton, in an editorial in USA Today. Judicial Watch is a non-partisan watchdog org that uses FOI and lawsuits to expose government corruption.

mpainter, wasn’t it Judicial Watch that issued the original FOI’s for the emails that sort of started this whole thing ? I think they were the group that forced Hillary Clinton swear on oath before a federal judge that she had released all her eMails related to her time at State. As an aside, we know that sworn statement was false so Perjury should certainly be an issue. However the FBI’s remit was only in regard to the existence of Classified Information on the mail server.

Non-partisan in the sense that it has no political affiliation. They harry Republicans and Democrats alike. They sniff out corruption where it may be found and yes, their nose started twitching at the Clintons a long time ago. Whose nose did not?

Just looking at what further information we know a month after this post was written.
Newsweek gives some information about the setup of Abedins email accounts
“This new evidence relates to how Abedin managed her emails. She maintained four email accounts—an unclassified State Department account, another on the clintonemail.com domain and a third on Yahoo. The fourth was linked to her husband’s account; she used it to support his activities when he was running for Congress, investigative records show. Abedin, who did not know Clinton used a private server for her emails, told the bureau in an April interview that she used the account on the clintonemail.com domain only for issues related to the Secretary’s personal affairs, such as communicating with her friends. For work-related records, Abedin primarily used the email account provided to her by the State Department.”http://europe.newsweek.com/hillary-clinton-emails-fbi-comey-donald-trump-anthony-weiner-huma-abedin-514918?rm=eu”

There seems to be a jump to any email you send while working for the government becomes a ‘government record’ It one thing to say that would apply to official business and another to say if you had any email address that wasnt government supplied then that also becomes a government record.
On the face of it, and since the access to Abedins private emails, she hasnt been charged with not turning these records over to State department that your private records on your private email address and on your personal computer dont fall into that category.

I think that this is relevant to this discussion. The Washington Post and other newspapers are reporting that the CIA made an assessment that the Russian government leaked the Emails to Wikileaks in a deliberate attempt to favor a Trump victory in the presidential election. This assessment was presented to Congressional leaders in September with a request that it be made public. Republican leaders opposed the publication of the reports conclusions

The trump transition office replied to this report with a brief few sentence release which noted that the US intelligence agencies failure in their assessments prior to the 2003 Iraq war.

There are now bipartisan efforts to hold hearings on the hacks. Perhaps these efforts had the knowledge of the CIA assessments in the background. As one senator noted, the Russian agencies had attempted to get access to voter lists. One can well imagine, an attempt to put an election into chaos by corrupting or destroying voter lists

The CIA does not report/present to congress but to the Director of Intelligence or the President.
ThE CIA has no investigative purview within the U.S. The FBI investigated the hacking and found nothing.
TAG, you would not be posting this drivel if you used your real name. You are angling for suckers.

The FBI and DHS issued a report in October that identified Russia as the culprit in the hacking with the conclusion that teh aim of the hacking was to destabilize the US elections. it is the Trump victory objective which is the novel part of teh CIS assessment.

Wrong again, TAG. The FBI never made any such conclusion on destabilizing elections.
FBI testimony this week before House Committee on Intelligence does not attribute motives to hacking, does not concur in the CIA “assessment”. Big discrepancy in views with CIA, I red Democrats, made news. Please stop making things up, or else identify yourself.

As Republican Senator Marco Rubio noted, the Russian hacking endangered the US electoral system. They attacked the Democratic Party in 2016. They could attack the Republican Party the next time. That is why there is a bipartisan effort in Congress to get to the bottom of the matter. The Russian government has launched major digital attacks on |Estonia and Georgia. Why Trump denies they would not launch an attack on the US is disturbing. If I were a citizen of a country in eastern Europe, I would be very concerned about my future right now.

TAG, I note that you refuse to withdraw your incorrect claim that the FBI concluded that the hackings were a Russian attempt to “destabilize” or otherwise influence the election. You need to stop these false claims under a hidden identity.

It is all aimed at the electoral college. They imagine to swing the electoral voters to Hillary. See the latest headlines: “electors to get intelligence briefing”. Suits have been filed seeking to overturn electoral voting requirements. These desperados are capable of trying anything.

Did they hack the DNC? Probably. Did they leak it? Seems they didn’t have to because Wikileaks claims to have already had it

According to David Ignatius, the CIA has identified the people who were the conduits for the leaks between the Russian agencies and Wikileaks. These were some of the confirmations of Russian involvement

Don’t wish to identify your sources? David Ignatious is editor and columnist of the Washington Post. How about some evidence? Got none? I predict there never will be any evidence presented. What we are seeing is a gigantic canard floated by the Dems and their media allies. It is in fact a campaign to convince the electors that the election of Trump is Russian dirty work. Desperados.

I’m not sure that I can add clarity to this… but will make an attempt. The following are NOT intended as discussion points, but food for thought… a different perspective from what you hear in the media:

1) The supposed motivations are completely bogus.

Why would Russia prefer Trump over Clinton? I don’t see it at all. I know what the media push… but they promote possibilities (based on *business* deals) compared to historical realities (based on *political* deals already done.)

Guess what family has been in bed with Russian interests for over a decade, ignored congressional concerns about the Russian Uranium deal, *could* have easily stepped in to stop the deal but instead passively allowed it to go through… and whose foundation has benefited to the tune of $145 million from those Russian interests. Those are all facts, none of them debunked. Talk about Conflict Of Interest. A huge reason to prefer Clinton.

Guess which candidate is more predictable and easily controllable by Russia? Clinton has shown no willingness to strongly address Russian adventurism. Surely they would prefer Clinton in the W.H.!

2) There are huge assumptions in the claim that both sides were hacked but only one side was WikiLeaded.

I see little reason to make the same assumptions. The CIA:
– Ignores the fact that Julian Assange himself has explained his motivations… there truly is no mystery here.
– Assumes both sides were hacked (yet FBI says there is no such evidence)
– Assumes both sides have approximately equivalent dirty laundry to be aired (this is about a million to one suspect. While the R’s certainly aren’t squeaky clean, the dirt pile on the other side is immense. Paid agitators, paid-for violence, paid protestors, illegal collusion with funders, with media, with debate moderators and more. Rigged primaries. Government oppression of “opposition” nonprofits. As one author has put it well: a climate of corruption.

3) There are also huge assumptions in the claim that leaked emails were a significant cause of electoral failure.

I see little reason to assume the emails did anything other than confirm what we knew. I guarantee… 100% of my liberal friends ignored the emails.
– Did the emails reveal HRC’s widely-repeated claim that half the country are “Deplorables”?
– Did the emails cause Bernie’s supporters to avoid voting for HRC?
– Did the emails suddenly help us (falsely??) see that HRC is untrustworthy, as radical (or more) than Obama, etc?
– Was HRC viewed by the nation as a wonderful, trustworthy, honest, self-sacrificing citizen… until the emails were released?
– Did the emails cause HRC to avoid Wisconsin and Michigan at the end of the campaign?
– Did the emails cause HRC to never answer the Benghazi “3am call”, thus proving her military leadership capability to many people?
– Did the emails cause 100% of the media to completely miss the sense of the voters?

Seems to me she did this to herself.

There’s one more HUGE question… I’ll say something on that one separately.

Does nobody remember the successful phishing exploit in which Podesta gave away his email password, resulting in the whole tranche of his email history being accessed? Could have been a Nigerian or Korean or Nebraskan scammer, who then sold same to wikileaks. Blaming Russia for this is more scary than global warming! Not that our collective enemies haven’t been deep within everyone’s private stuff, but this one is just too clearly a Podesta brain fart.

Such messy fellows, those Russian operatives. Imagine, breaking and entering and theft, and they leave their messy fingerprints everywhere.
John Bolton believes it could be a false flag operation. Strange the CIA did not consider that. Bolton, a Washington insider, believes that the hacking could have been done by someone in the “administration”, rather vague, but it can be assumed that he has his sources.

That the CIA found RNC data on foreign servers has been reported on CNN.

I find it puzzling that there is resistance to the idea of Russian interference in the recent US election. The Russians have been interfering in European politics for some time. They have funded right wing populist parties with the purpose of destabilizing the EU. I’ve seen this in the press and in such reliable publications as Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy magazines. Why it would be doubtfiul that this policy of disinformation would not extend to US politics is quite puzzling

Well, TAG do you say the Russians are fumblebums? I don’t, nor does anyone but you and the Clinton press. John Holdren is no politician. He is a diplomat. You hate facts and fact checking, don’t you TAG.

Really? The FBI says bunk. But then I guess some spooks at the CIA are in fear of losing their jobs. Maybe the next bunch will know the difference between a video and a planned assault by terrorists. LOL

TAG, *no* not equivalent. I quote your CNN source: “FBI investigators did find that a breach of a third-party entity that held data belonging to the RNC. But the data appears to have been outdated and of little value to the hackers.”

Hackers are constantly going after data, in general. That’s not a surprise.

And to find a breach of a third-party entity with data that’s “outdated and of little value” could just as easily be a hack of an ESP (Email Service Provider) to grab an email broadcast list.

Nobody has evidence that the RNC itself was hacked.
Nobody has evidence that the RNC has done anything even slightly similar to what the DNC has done.

RNC hired a security firm when they found out about DNC leaks. This firm got details from the FBI about the DNC leaks, and did a search for similar intrusions. What they found was there was similar hacking attempt of RNC servers, but it had been blocked by their security systems.

If Putin were smart, he would let it slip that he liked trump. That would cause a furor in the media and destabilize the election process by making it appear that Russia deliberately influenced the election results on behalf of Trump.

If Putin’s motive was to destabilize, he has succeeded. The Democrats are determined to overturn election results by any means that they can contrive. The Democrats are his pawn in the destabilizing game.
Hillary is orchestrating all of this, no doubt. Pretty ugly, in my view.

The desperation of the Democrats has driven them frantic. Harry Reid, Senate minority leader, has accused FBI director Comey of withholding “evidence” and demands his resignation. The electoral college seems to be their ultimate target.

Why the desperation? Because they know that once Trump gains control of the apparatus of government, trump will uncover the money laundering of the Clinton Foundation and other Democratic organizations. Trump is an enemy of the system, and they are the system.

On the Sunday Fareed Zakaria “GPS” program on CNN, a question was asked of one of Trump’s senior foreign policy advisors that I had previously put out in this list. James Woolsey was CIA Director from February 1993 to January 1995 under President Clinton. Zakaria asked him about Trump’s support for the Syrian government under Assad, with its alliance with Russia, since, according to Trump, they are fighting ISIS. Zakaria pointed out that Assad was being heavily supported by Iran (both directly and through its proxy Hezbollah). Zakaria asked how siding with an Iranian alliance partner was consistent with Trump’s stated goal of containing Iran. Iran and Saudi Arabia are contesting for supremacy in the region. Iran’s operations in Syria and Iraq are part of their effort in that regard. Support for the Syrian government is support for Iran’s ambitions.

Woolsey first attempted the politician’s trick of answering at length a different question. He gave a long answer about how the caliphate was not contained in Syria and Iraq and efforts to contain them would have to occur in many places. Zakaria pressed him on the issue and Woolsey answered with an analogy to WW2 and the alliance with Stalin. Woolsey talked about sometimes having to ally with the bad guy.

So we have a senior foreign policy advisor of Trump admitting to the inconsistency of Trump’s foreign policy. Trump rails against the Iran deal since it, according to him, does little to contain Iran’s ambitions. On the other hand, he favors cooperating with an active Iranian alliance which long term goal is to further Iran’s ambitions.

Russia has allied with Syria and Iran and is participating on the Shia side of the Sunni-Shia civil war in the Middle East. Trump claims to be a non-interventionist who will keep the US out of wars. Yet, here he is advocating joining one side in a civil war

“Woolsey answered with an analogy to WW2 and the alliance with Stalin.” Surely this is obvious? ISIS is currently at war with us

The military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz wrote the famous maxim “War is politics by other means”. That is war is like politics in being a means to some end. Just what is the war against Isis supposed to achieve. Isis has only about 30,000 or so fighters. Just a few lightly armed divisions. The US military could roll over all ISIS organized resistance is a few days. What would this accomplish? ISIS would reorganize as a terrorist organization and engage in asymmetric warfare through civilian attacks. What is required in the war against ISIS is a political settlement in the Middle East in which such terrorist organizations would be discouraged.

What political end state has Donald Trump proposed. Bombing the h… out of ISIS” is a tactic (which won’t work anyway) not a political end state. It appears that Trump wants an arrangement with the Russians in the Middle East. The Russians have allied themselves with the Shia side in the civil war that is going on there. How this is going to end the threat of terrorism and not just encourage it is something that I find very difficult to understand.

You have it backwards. ISIS is a terrorist organization who had too many terrorists and so decided to occupy some land. It will not revert to what it already is. A handful of men can take over an area the size of Iraq when unopposed (as was ISIS), but terrorists do not conquer lands because then you have to devote resources to holding it.

That ISIS felt the need (for the oil revenue) is more an indication of the lack of state support than of it. Not a refutation of who they are.

TAG, I have no doubt that you know who created the mess in the Mid East, but not a peep from you concerning that. Apparently you are content with turmoil in that region. Instead you attack Trump for his intentions of undoing the policy of the last administration.

To me, this is a hugely important question: why would the CIA push such an obviously political line of thought?

Unfortunately, from where I sit the answer is quite clear.

Where I sit: an observer with many friends in various levels of gov’t, particularly in defense, technology, security, law enforcement, etc.

1) There’s been a pattern going on for many years. Leaders in those realms with great experience and strong ethical foundations are out. People who are quite politically malleable and compliant with the current administration are in. (Plenty of senior people have quietly said… there’s hardly anyone left in those leadership circles who is truly trustworthy.)

2) We now have top leadership who clearly subscribe to situational ethics. Absolutely zero evidence of enforcing existing laws independent of personal preference. Instead, the exact opposite: racist justice department policies (what else can you call a policy of only enforcing the law for certain races)… multiplied increase in ignoring laws they don’t like (a completely unconstitutional direction BTW.)

3) Almost nobody has actually lost a job, let alone been punished, for illegal activities in support of the administration. In general, they get reassigned to a less visible role and retain both salary and generous pension.

Combine those three items: removal of ethical leaders, leadership without a moral compass, and zero consequences for breaking the law to help the current leadership…

What you get: whole gov’t departments that no longer do what they were hired to do.

My own brief comment: Even if the purported CIA sources have their facts right, Russia was still not trying to help Trump. Like everyone else, they expected Clinton to win. Much more believable that they were trying to weaken their eventual opponent.

By the way, while I wouldn’t like Russia trying to intervene in an American election, I don’t like the entire Mainstream Media trying to throw the election to Clinton either. And that one I know happened. In the end, the voters decided, and that’s the way it should be.

The CIA leaks details to WaPo and Clinton media but refuses to testify before the House Intelligence Committee. What does that tell you? It tells me that the CIA has been politicized under this administration. Politicized intelligence. Hmmmm.

One smoking fuse: the plain language code of the Podesta emails that some claim alludes to p___philia and child s_x trafficking. Could this be the reason for the panic among the Democrats?

It would seem that the “Russian inference” media campaign that is being orchestrated by the Democrats has the object of convincing electors to switch their electoral votes from Trump to Clinton. Clinton would need to switch 38 Trump electoral votes to herself in order to win the election. Is it possible? In other words, would 38 Republican electors find it less distasteful to vote for Hillary instead of Clinton. Hardly likely. So, what would it take to overcome the reluctance of an elector to switch? Would $2 million do the trick? $3 million? Could the Democrats come up with $100 in funds to corrupt electors?

If the plan is to use $ as the means to shift electors, then the “Russian inference” canard makes sense. It is the smokescreen that hides the wholesale bribery of electors, giving the “switchers” a plausible justification. Four days to go.

Just as O’bumma starts to beat the battle drum, Putin says put up or shut up and British ex-ambassador Craig reports that he delivered DNC/Podesta emails to wikileaks. Craig claims it was an inside job.

“the issue of concern now (at least for many)” Don’t really follow this – who are these “many”? For many AGW believers, the issue of concern about Climategate is to get the rest of us to forget about it. For the rest of us, at least for me, the biggest issue was that Climategate was once and for all the final proof that McIntyre and others were telling the truth, and the Team was lying through their teeth.
Till then they had been pushing a Narrative – “Skeptics? Heh – no such thing. No _real_ scientists on the other side, just some clowns and politicians. We aren’t doing politics, we’re doing science. Block McIntyre’s publications? No way, can’t even be bothered – it’s not our fault if his works isn’t anywhere near good enough for anyone to publish.”
Climategate, and eventually the SkS blog, made it absolutely clear to everyone who wants to really want to know that they were lying. Behind the scenes, the Team was frantically running around trying to stamp out any sign that anyone would contradict their Narrative, simultaneously acknowledging – only to themselves – the good points that M&M were making.
The Team is still doing this stuff, but only their own fan club listens.

I think you do. As you point out the climategate emails: ‘made it absolutely clear to everyone’ . . . however, it was the hacking not the content or existence of those emails that the ‘believers’ (and there are many) had/have an issue with. Even using the ‘Out of context’ defense when there was/is all the the context you can shake a ‘stick’ at.

Just as the Clintonites would have you believe the real issue is the hacking by Russians – and thereby democracy itself – and not misfortune by convenience.

One would have to be somewhat retarded or a part of it, to believe separate accounts were only for convenience.

Trump is closing the Trump Foundation. The Democrats are squawking in dismay. Does anyone know how much $boola the Clinton Foundation took in during Hillary’s tenure as Secretary of State? I imagine she will be called on to explain some things in connection with that, among other things, by the incoming administration and the investigations by congressional committees. The Clinton crowd will scurry for cover, watch ’em.

The beautiful thing about this is that Trump owes his election to no one but himself, let the chips fall where they may.

The beautiful thing about this is that Trump owes his election to no one but himself, let the chips fall where they may

He owes his election to the people who voted for him and to them he owes the many promises that he made.

Now, it is being said that his supporter’s took him literally but not seriously. That is, that his rhetoric was seen as so much salesman’s puffery that is not to be taken literally. That being as it may, Trump is not elected as Prime Minister in some Westminster parliamentary system. He does not have the absolute power that a Prime Minster of a majority government has. He is a US president and the US constitution limits presidential power and makes him dependent on Congress. One can already see this with the number of very conservative cabinet nominations that he has made. The politics of these candidates would be opposed to the major stimulus spending on infrastructure that he is proposing. The Tea Party Freedom Caucus in teh House would also be opposed. But trump must cater to them or liberal Democrats such as Schumer. So Trump is even more dependent on Paul Ryan than he would be. He is even more dependent on Mitch McConnell that he would be.

He owes the election to his electors and to enact the policies that he promised them he is going to ahve to learn that he is only one player and other players may ahve quite different ideas. Paul Ryan is booed by Trump supporters. That is unfortunate. Joe Scarborough has observed that if teh Trump agenda fails, trump will not be re-elected. paul Ryan will be re-elected whether Trump succeeds of fails

“He owes his election to the people who voted for him and to them he owes the many promises that he made.”
Indeed. That is the real meaning of having a “mandate” and the only meaning that has any sense to it.
But there is plenty of overlap between what Trump wants to do and what the Republican Congress wants to do. Hopefully they will get those things done quickly, then work out the rest.
I have seen it suggested that Trump has been driven far to the right, into the arms of the hard-core conservatives – by the insanity of the left after this election. Till now they just hated and despised his supporters, but by now they have chosen to treat him as an implacable enemy, and I think they will get one. Good going, guys.

the republicans in Congress know that their fate is tied to Trump. If Trump does not meet the expectations of the voters, the House could be won by the Democrats in the midterm elections. I predict that Republicans in Congress will unite behind the Trump program, in the main.

By the bye, this may relate to the topic of this post. Though Trump has indicate that “she has suffered enough”, there is still plenty of interest in the Republican Congress on some kind of follow-up on Clinton’s misbehavior. I would have thought that a good compromise would be to put his people in charge of the FBI, tell them to find out what exactly happened with the investigations, and tell them to do as they see fit – all that they find out one way or another to be put in front of the American people. If she and her underlings deserve prosecution, or if not. Let justice be done and let it be a whole lot more transparent.

I do not see any hope for Hillary. The House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform has been the main investigator into Hillary’s misdeeds. The committee has broad powers of subpoena to be used at the discretion of the chairman, Jason Chaffetz of Utah. Immediately after the election, Chaffetz vowed to pursue all leads in his investigation of Hillary _and_ the Clinton Foundation. It was Chaffetz who called Comey to account before Congress concerning his giving Hillary the “get out of jail free” card. Hillary and Bill and the rest of their crowd do not have a bright future, not in the USA. China, perhaps, will afford them asylum. Or perhaps some Muslim country.

There is one very important consideration, imo: the partisan media which pours out daily incitement against Trump and his Republican supporters. Against this, the only Republican riposte available is a thorough exhumation and airing of Hillary’s various crimes and misdeeds. They will surely see to this.

The |Republicans now control both of the houses of Congress and the White House. Trump likes to boast of a supposed electoral “mandate”. The Republicans are the governing party. It is their duty to govern. Any Hillary issue is collateral to this. Trump made a lot of promises and claimed that he was the only one that could fix the mess. Now is the time that both he and the Republican majorities must deliver on these promises.

As before, Hillary issues are collateral to the duty of Republicans and especially Trump to prove that their ideas and their promises are worth something. it has been easy for them in the last few years. Their only policy was too obstruct. Now they actually have to do something real. That is much more difficult

A short six minute video from the Atlantic. It is about Trump’s Carrier deal. It goes into teh background and shows that the large majority of factory jobs have not been lost to free trade or out sourcing but to automation. It shows Trump boasting that Carrier is going to invest $16 million dollars into the factory. It also shows the CEO of Carrier’s parent company saying that the $16 million is to be used to further automate the factory and eliminate more jobs.

I suppose that this shows how difficult it is to address real world problems as opposed to making campaign speeches.

Note also that Trump says without support that there will be more than $16 million invested. People talk about a post-truth society and identify Trump as an example. However, there is nothing new here. Trump is a real estate promoter and he speaks in puffery as a real estate promoter.

Realty development requires promotion. Every realty development starts as an idea.
When the idea is vetted and examined with due diligence and passes rigorous scrutiny, then it is promoted. Prospective investors perform their own analysis. At last the attorneys take over to hammer out the terms of the deal. This is where the lip meets the cup and deals often fail at this point, due to the inability of the parties to agree on a myriad of specifics. To do as Trump, one would need not only a native genius but also a real estate attorney at the top of his profession and experienced in international negotiations. These types are uncommon, being found only in the largest firms. Once such an attorney proves his ability, he becomes a regular part in the realtor’s dealings and developments. Such attorneys are indispensable in large realty transactions, and often will travel overseas to act with plenipotentiary powers to negotiate realty deals. This is hardly “puffery”. Puffery will not accomplish large realty transactions.
Honestly.

mpainter – There was a court case near here recently. It was a law suit about a condo development. The judge ruled that the statements made by the developer about the condos were puffery and that the plaintiffs should have known that. They lost their suit.

Yes, Carrier planned to send a significant number of jobs to Mexico and is going ahead with that plan. Carrier was successful in getting $7 million from the state of Indiana for the promise to retain 700 some odd jobs there. So jobs did go to Mexico.

The Atlantic looked at the deeper issue of why manufacturing jobs are disappearing and found that it was not due to free trade or offshoring but with automation. Now if this is fake news then rational analysis of social problems is fake news. Even professional jobs such as lawyers, radiologists … are now being automated. Very cheap microprocessors running at gigahertz speed with masses of cheap high speed memory are transforming the economy. Everything is being virtualized and automated. Railing against Mexico is not going to stop that.

TAG, so automation is the problem and Trump is full of B.S. when he talks about jobs being exported? Really, it’s gotten to the point where the media cannot be relied on for accuracy and balance when it comes to Trump. You lack judgment.

TAG, if you had any sense you would know that jobs have been lost to automation since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. We have been exporting jobs for two decades. Do you deny this?

TAG, if you had any sense you would know that jobs have been lost to automation since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. We have been exporting jobs for two decades. Do you deny this?

Trump has issued a new teet threatening Toyota with a large border tax if they go ahead and build a factory in Mexico to build cars for the American market. So now even foreign manufacturers cannot use factories in Mexico. People who are old enough to remember the 70s will recall the introduction of Japanese cars to the American market. people will remember that customers could not get enough of these imported Japanese cars because, unlike their American competition, they were of high quality. That is one way that jobs are exported. American manufactures were subjected to the discipline of the market and had to dramatically improve both the quality and capabilities of the cars that they made.

Now, apparently, Trump wants to return to the conditions of the 70s in which American manufacturers built low quality cars to be sold at high prices. Trump wants to impose a tax on all car buyers who will ahve to pay more to get less if experience is any guide.

Jobs have been exported for a very long time. Free trade developed in the 19th century. Free trade opened markets and opened competition. it made and makes everyone richer. It experts jobs and it imports jobs. It creates jobs.

Ford has cancelled their planned 1.5 $billion plant in Mexico, announced yesterday. The Pres-elect is getting results and the Democrats are spewing hate and poison. Now, there’s my idea of a better world. Next, illegals get herded back over the border, better and better.

TAG, to help you out of your confusion:
Toyota Motor North America, INC., is a U.S. corporation that manufactures automobiles in the U.S. Trump wants them to keep their plant in the U.S. and I’ll bet that they do. How about that Trump, not even in office, yet.

Ah, so. TAG likes the idea of exporting jobs and importing the manufactures. It’s all about a better world, says TAG. Except it’s got Trump elected President- and the nasty Republicans a fifty seat majority in the House.

Ford has cancelled their planned 1.5 $billion plant in Mexico, announced yesterday

Trump is for protectionism. Protectionism entails higher prices and lower quality. Trump wants to create high taxes to allow manufacturers to raise prices and lower quality.

I bought my first car, brand new off the lot, in May 1980. Within two weeks the rear axle broke and the car went from one side to another and back again of a four lane arterial street. A few years earlier, my lab colleague had saved up and bought a brand new car. He took his family to the dealership to take delivery. They all got into the car and proudly drove away. But not too far. It stalled and wouldn’t start again as it left the dealer lot. He and his family were sitting in a stalled car half in the dealer lot and half in the right hand lane of a very busy street. His three year old son then said “I don’t like your car Daddy.” I think that this shows why people so gladly bought Japanese cars and Detroit brands were viewed with disdain. Expensive, poorly built and unsafe.

Trump wants protectionism. People who can remember the Detroit cars of the 70s and early 80s will recall just what kind of cars Detroit built when they had no competition

Trump is for protectionism. Protectionism entails higher prices and lower quality. Trump wants to create high taxes to allow manufacturers to raise prices and lower quality.

I listened to many Trump speeches and I never heard him say “I am for protectionism.” I’ll admit the definition of fair trade is subjective but his message was that our bureaucrats were minor leaguers negotiating with pros, that our guys are more interested in what comes next in the revolving door to the private sector or have a world citizenship ideology. Also, so far Trump has not had to raise any taxes and is already getting positive results by simply shining a light on corporate plans. Overall, I trust Trump to understand what makes quality and how markets work over any of the liberal heavy hitters.

My first car was a ’69 Mercury Cougar. It the famous 351 Cleveland V8, same premium engine offered in Mustangs. Unfortunately the cars first years were in northern Ohio and the body rusted by 1979. I got it in 1978 for a $400. I haven’t seen one since 1983. I would love to have it back.

Right, Trump is simply using public pressure to get the desired results. This is a reproach to O’bama, who never uttered a peep to try to save U.S. jobs. Already he makes the Democrats look like manure. Trump is smarter than all the Democrats put together, and they hate him for it.

I listened to many Trump speeches and I never heard him say “I am for protectionism. I’ll admit the definition of fair trade is subjective but his message was that our bureaucrats were minor leaguers negotiating with pros, …”

Trump advocates and threatens border taxes. That is protectionism. He wants higher prices in the American market

One thing that I find odd about trump is that he complains of NAFTA and unfair mexican wages but I have not heard any complaint from him about competition from “Right to Work” jurisdictions and how this causes lower wages and unemployment. Mexican wages are unfair but legislation to damage union rights and cause lower wages is unmentioned by Trump.

As indicated in the Atlantic video, there is no shortage of jobs in the vicinity of the Carrier plant. It is just that they pay about half of what Carrier pays. Unemployment is about 4% so people can get jobs. But they won’t get union wages or union benefits. Automation and the ending of union rights are driving many people out of the middle class. Trump says nothing about this. He just wants border taxes to raise US prices.

TAG, you imagine that attributing protectionism to Trump makes him an advocate of that. Nope, his purpose is different. Seems that you fail to see the distinction between protectionism and preventing the export of US jobs.

I suggest that you calm yourself by taking a succession of deep breaths.

“NAFTA did not cause the huge job losses feared by the critics or the large economic gains predicted by supporters,” a 2015 Congressional Research Service report said. “The net overall effect of NAFTA on the U.S. economy appears to have been relatively modest, primarily because trade with Canada and Mexico accounts for a small percentage of U.S. GDP.”

“JTK551- FYI – the holding company owns the operating company, not the otherway around. TMC of japan is the holding corp”

TMC of Japan is the corporate parent. TMNA is NOT an operating company. It is a 100% owned holding company. It manufactures no cars. It 100% owns subsidiaries that do. The ownership of all this is a corporation based in Japan.

Not difficult. The American holding company has NO discretion to address these issues outside of control by TMC in Japan.

Toyota Motor North America and its U.S. manufacturing corp has no choice, imo. Trump is implementing his mandate and Toyota would be very foolish to cross Trump.
Now, Toyota could establish a plant in Mexico under Mexican corporation law, and close its U.S. plant. But they might decide not to risk the ire of Trump.

Anyway, Trump shows himself as a very effective achiever. I have a feeling that we shall be entertained by the yelps and squawk of the Trump haters for a long time to come

“Now, Toyota could establish a plant in Mexico under Mexican corporation law, and close its U.S. plant. But they might decide not to risk the ire of Trump.”

Toyota already has a plant in Mexico, and there was never any plans to close the US plant. Just gonna change the model it produces. But let us not let facts get in our way.

Ford is still moving its Focus production to Mexico, with a loss of US jobs. Yet The Donald spoke highly of their plans. He also spoke highly of United Technologies, who is moving their Huntington IN plant to Mexico. It is shutting down in March, resulting in a job loss of 700.

Donald will merely be President in a few days, not King. He’s gonna have a hard time singling out certain corporations for moving jobs to Mexico, and not others. Equal Protection and all that.

He may come up with a comprehensive strategy. Or maybe not. But up to now he hasn’t and his twitter rants don’t seem to be effective anymore. GM, Ford and Toyota don’t seem to be willing to change their plans on Donald’s say so.

Correct, a holding company 100% owned by TMC Japan. You think it is relevant where the holding company exists for the Mexican plant, but are unconcerned that it is all owned 100% by a Japanese Co, TMC.

Either the location of the owner is relevant, or it is not. And the bottom line is that the public corp that owns it all is located in Japan.

“The bottom line is that you are unable to grasp the fact that a U.S. corporation is subject to U.S. polity.”

And what you are unable to grasp is that foreign corporations doing business in the US are also subject to US laws and regulations. The one exception is tax treatment of income.

If you are suggesting that US corporations should be MORE susceptible to govt interference in their internal affairs, doesn’t that go against what Trump and Republicans were preaching in the campaign? Why should Trump be telling Toyota that it should keep importing Rav4’s instead of some Corolla’s, when there is no difference in domestic jobs?

Certainly, the US could impose a tariff or border tax, but it would have to generally applicable, and could not be solely to “punish” a US Corporation for decisions the President doesn’t like.

I’m sympathetic with the supposed aims of bringing more manufacturing jobs to the US. Just that his actions so far, and the twitter threats, don’t seem to accomplish those goals. He needs to have some large scale strategy, which he hasn’t divulged yet. I’m willing to wait, but I’m also willing to call BS on what folks like you are claiming as big victories that don’t stand up to scrutiny.

Folks like me applaud Trump’s intention of stopping the export of U.S. jobs and do not harbor any doubts that he will accomplish that. Nor do we doubt the effectiveness of his public utterances on the issue, nor do we deprecate such efforts. We have faith in him, well justified by his immediate address of the problem, imo.

Prime minister May of the UK condemned Kerry’s speech, horning in on the issue and pissing off O’bumma and the Democrats. I read this as a signal that the UK government will stand shoulder to shoulder with Trump. That was quick. How about that Trump.

Ah, so. TAG likes the idea of exporting jobs and importing the manufactures. It’s all about a better world, says TAG. Except it’s got Trump elected President- and the nasty Republicans a fifty seat majority in the House.

Ford has cancelled their planned 1.5 $billion plant in Mexico, announced yesterday. The Pres-elect is getting results and the Democrats are spewing hate and poison. Now, there’s my idea of a better world. Next, illegals get herded back over the border, better and better.

“Ford has cancelled their planned 1.5 $billion plant in Mexico, announced yesterday.”

But the jobs are still moving, just to an existing Mexican plant instead of a new one.

At what point do you think he would be meddling too much in the internal affairs of corporations?

GM makes 4500 Cruze hatchbacks in Mexico, but 185K sedans in the US. That has drawn Trump’s ire. But the easiest thing for GM to do is stop marketing the hatchbacks here.

Toyota imports some of their Rav4’s from Japan now. There are planning to convert one of their several Corolla plants in the US to Rav4, and move some Corolla production to Mexico. There isn’t a net job loss. But he is mad about that.

I’m sympathetic to the idea of increasing US factory output. But he doesn’t seem to have any coherent strategy beyond twitter ramblings.

“The announcement, in what the company said was the second phase of a plan it first made public a year ago…………”http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/08/fiat-to-invest-1-billion-in-new-michigan-ohio-plants-create-2000-jobs.html

(It was a 5 year plan from what I find, but another link and moderation city)

“Toyota Motor North America, INC., is a U.S. corporation that manufactures automobiles in the U.S. Trump wants them to keep their plant in the U.S. and I’ll bet that they do. How about that Trump, not even in office, yet.”

“Meanwhile, Fiat Chrysler falls in line:”

A) I agree. Trump isn’t in office yet.
B) Fiat fulfilling a portion of a 5 year plan they proposed well before the election, and will be importing Jeeps from (wait for it) ……….Mexico!

I’ll happily state when Trump actually does something. The Ford gig may earn him some due. But I’m not gonna give him (undue) credit for what he’s not done. He’s still got work to do.

Yet another consideration: “General Motors has no plans to change where it produces small cars because of criticism from President-elect Donald Trump, the company’s top executive said Sunday night.

CEO Mary Barra said the auto business has long lead times for where it produces vehicles, with decisions are made two to four years ahead.”

Then later:”Last week Ford canceled plans to build a small-car factory south of the border, while announcing 700 new jobs in Michigan. The company, however, still plans to shift production of the compact Ford Focus to an existing Mexican plant.”

Full credit due trump. See below. No credit to any others for stopping job exports, no one even tried. Not O’bumma, not bush, not Hillary. Repeat, full credit due to Trump for undertaking what no one else has.

There are those, of course who will never approve of Trump. Sore losers.

The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) defined puffery as a “term frequently used to denote the exaggerations reasonably to be expected of a seller as to the degree of quality of his product, the truth or falsity of which cannot be precisely determined.”[2]

The FTC stated in 1984 that puffery does not warrant enforcement action by the Commission. In its FTC Policy Statement on Deception, the Commission stated: “The Commission generally will not pursue cases involving obviously exaggerated or puffing representations, i.e., those that the ordinary consumers do not take seriously.” e.g., “The Finest Fried Chicken in the World.”

This is the same as rhetoric that is to be taken seriously but not literally

TAG, thanks for the reference. Seems that “puffery” is the sort of exaggeration that one is never expected to take seriously. So this is how Trump beat Hillary. Interesting, because Hillary thinks it was the Russians. But in fact she lacked puffery. She should have said ” I will be the best president ever

A federal appeals court has re-instated suits against the US government, these filed by Judicial Watch and CauseofAction, two separate suits seeking to force the government (State Department) to recover from Hillary Clinton all of the emails from her personal server dating to her tenure as Secretary of State. This means that the Trump administration will inherit the suit! It seems likely that Hillary will have to turn over the goods or deep six her computer. Going to be very interesting.

CauseofAction is another watchdog org that relies on litigation and it has been very effective.

Full credit owing to Trump for acting on campaign promise before he is in power. He has attention of the world and has put the spotlight on the automakers. They are feeling the heat. Otherwise, don’t be naive. 2m autos imported yearly from Mexico by U.S. auto corporations. This will change and Trump is already in action. He fingered Ford last spring. Ford cancelled plant, put best face on it. Chrysler, GM, Toyota, all will toe the line or get slapped with a border tax. Exporting jobs from the US is not free trade but profiteering greed. Trump will end that, be assured.

Trump’s diplomacy is already paying out. This week Russia sent a naval squadron to the Philippines to conduct joint exercises in the South China Sea. This is pointed at China. The Russian admiral said ” The Philippines can now choose between Russian support and US support.”
The (diplomatically) unspoken third alternative is that the Philippines can have the support of both.
For those who depend on mainstream media, you will be told this is Russia against the US. It is not. Putin wishes to curry favor with Trump and is hinting at his support for the U.S., Japan, the Philippines and the ROC in their face off with China.
By the way, the Philippines are at odds with China over territorial claims in the Spratly Archipelago, where the China junta is making a grab.

Russian intervention in the South China Sea is not lost on the China junta, whose news organ just broached the word “bargaining” in a blustering editorial.Looks like Trump will make an outstanding president.

The Russians have one aircraft carrier. This aircraft carrier does not work very well. It is currently returning to Russia after service in the cause of the Syrian dictator.

Russia is a regional power. Its capability to project force in the South China Sea is trivial.

In any event, the current Philippine president is courting new ties with China as well. China is now asserting a hegemony in the region and countries as far away as Australia are having to accommodate that fact. The Trans-Pacific Partnership was an attempt to form an economic alliance that could counter this increasing Chinese influence. However with the Trump presidency, American influence in the region will decrease with the ending of the TPP as per Trump’s policies. Trump’s policies are described as “America First”. The rise of Chinese influence in the region will be one result of those policies.

TAG, your news is outdated. Duerte opted for opening to China following falling out with O’bumma administration last year. Trump has transformed sore Duerte with one phone call, remember? New deal with Trump as dealer.

China hegemony grows if U.S. exerts influence in the area? You have strange notions. China has no friends except North Korea and disgruntled Clinton/O’bumma democrats. China junta helpless if Trump issues call for democracy there and makes it an issue. Point: China junta vulnerable and impotent against “democracy in China” offensive.

It is a matter of mobilizing world option against totalitarian China. Shouldn’t be too difficult. China is eager to “bargain” and mollify Trump. It is only a question of how far Trump will go in his campaign to “soften up” China. If Trump undertakes serious campaign, junta will be shaken, perhaps fall. The junta cannot be oblivious to all of these considerations.

China is the large market for natural resources and is becoming the largest consumer market in the region. it is setting up a number of development banks to rival the influence of the World Bank. China is becoming a dominant economic power. Even countries such as the UK and France are joining the Chinese-initiated Asian Infrastructure Bank despite opposition from the US.

Trump touts America First” and decries interventionism. He is opposed to trade. He was elected on this but it does have implications and one of these is teh decline of American influence and the rise of Chinese. For some reason, he regards the bankrupt kleptocracy in Russia as an entity to cultivate but also feels that he must antagonize the rising economic power in the world

Please read Fareed Zakaria’s column in teh Washington Post this week. It is entitled ” Trump could be the best thing that has happened to China in a long time”. The nub of the column is that the US retreat from trade under Trump is leaving a vacuum which China will be only too happy top fill. China has signed trade treaties with a large number of countries in Latin America in the last little while. With the ending of the TPP, countries in the Asia-Pacific region are adjusting to the new reality of American absence. Zakaria quotes the New Zealand Prime Minister as stating “[The TPP] was all about the United States showing leadership in the Asia region. . . . We really like the U.S. being in the region. . . . But in the end if the U.S. is not there, that void has to be filled. And it will be filled by China.”

Trump really could be the best thing that has happened to China in a long time. Chinese power and influence will increase with trade with teh American retreat. As Zakaria points out Chinese firms now dominate their internal market and no longer take cues from western/American firms. As Trump orchestrates the American retreat from trade, China will become only more powerful and influential.

For some reason, trump concentrates on a bankrupt kleptocracy that is insignificant in world trade and economic power and yet goes out of his way to alienate a rising superpower

TAG, still believing everything that you read about Trump? You say “As Trump orchestrates the American retreat from trade, China will become only more powerful and influential.”

You are coming across a bit screechy. Relax, breathe deeply and slowly. Panic only interferes with clear thinking.

Interesting: this year, 2017, is the Year of the Rooster in China. There was in December a sculpture of a rooster erected in a public place there. It had, instead of a red comb a wave of golden hair, a la Donald Trump. This image is sweeping China. The Chinese masses still yearn for democracy and pin their hopes on Trump. I predict that millions of these images will be sold in China before the junta outlaws them. The moving finger writes: Thou art weighed in the balance and art found wanting. The days of thy junta are numbered.

The Guardian “Trump dossier” story has a Bush flavor to it. Many are unaware that the elder Bush headed the CIA under Nixon. Spooks and disinformation is one of the tools in his bag. I will bet that the Republican “opponent” who engaged the “counter-intelligence” consultant was the Bush family. And I will bet that, contrary to the claim in the article, the Bush crowd financed their “counter-intelligence” consultant the whole way, paying through their Houston based money laundering operation or perhaps through the Azerbaijan office of a large, Houston based international law firm. But, in fact, these two means of finance are the same. The payments would not be cash, but lucrative “investments” at nominal terms. The Bush crowd has hundreds of confidents on the take in this fashion. I suspect McCain as one of them.

Mpainter, do you think Pompeo is up to the task of bringing the CIA to heal? Some think that GHW Bush was recruited from Yale by Vannevar Bushreferral. Was Zapata Oil a CIA front? Did Bush (CIA) donate the ships “The Barbara,” The Zapata, and the Houston to the anti-Castro Bay of Pigs invasion? If so, one wonders how well known this or how long the secrets hold, whether the secrets reflect well in history, whether such compromises were necessary. I think many have wondered if we really need the CIA doing half the stuff it does or if could be replaced with the 16 other agencies. I doubt Trump has read any Mark Lane but hopefully he walks into Langley with due caution.

Kim, DIA was JFK’s answer to start to ease out the CIA. DNI (Director of National Intelligence) is the agency set up most recently (by Bush) to watch the CIA and all the others, for whistle-blowers to go to and it reports to the President an Congress. James Clapper is the current director. Dan Coats is the incoming director. He’s twice retired from government, most recently one of Indiana’s senators. He was on the senate select committee on intelligence and likely knows VP Spence well.

The first 100 days will have a lot of liberal outrage in the amount of top brass carnage in the executive agencies. Just a guess. All executive agencies, particularly those in intelligence, are prohibited from engaging in partisan politics. However, the American voter is the only enforcer of that rule.

Steele’s going into hiding immediately on his cover being blown is telling. I see implications that Steele knew that information was fabricated. Why else would he represent a liability for Russia?

He must have been aware that he was offering Russian intelligence the opportunity to meddle in the U.S. electoral process. I expect Trump will want to have a chat with Christopher Steele. If he can be found. I expect the UK government to cooperate.

“If you want to build cars in the world, then I wish you all the best. You can build cars for the United States, but for every car that comes to the USA, you will pay 35 per cent tax,”

“I would tell BMW that if you are building a factory in Mexico and plan to sell cars to the USA, without a 35 per cent tax, then you can forget that,”

With this the question arises about Trump’s understanding of just what he is advocating. Does he realize that if there is a tariff wall of 35% then car prices will rise 35%. I would think that a US president would understand this but with Trump I just don’t know or more clearly I hope that he does but fear that he does not.

With all the loose trump trade talk and tariff talk, I would anticipate that smarter heads will prevail within the administration so that a smoot harley trade war will not erupt.
Trump has picked several very smart guys for the cabinet such as Tilleson which bodes well for a productive trade policy.

Trump points out that U.S. cars are seldom seen in Germany. Same with Japan. Trump apparently will not let foreign manufacturers do what he forbids U.S.: set up a plant across the border in Mexico. Good. His plan will work: build your products in the U.S. or your own country. Shopping for cheap labor is not free trade but corporate profiteering.

We are being freed from the pernicious grasp of obtuse bureaucrats who are trammeled by outdated principles.
Thank GOD.

And wrong again, TAG. Competition in the market will keep prices in line. American manufacturers will still have imports to compete against. You simply fail to grasp even the basics. Are you by any chance a climate scientist of the 97% variety?

Wrong again, TAG, the imports will not cost 35% more because the border tax applies only to Mexico, not to others. And the 35% is a killer tax which will make it unprofitable to import from Mexico, so there will be no 35% added to imports- imports from Mexico will simply stop.

“The U.S. car industry would have a bad awakening if all the supply parts that aren’t being built in the U.S. were to suddenly come with a 35 percent tariff,” Gabriel said, according to The Guardian, “I believe it would make the U.S. car industry weaker, worse and above all more expensive. I would wait and see what the Congress has to say about that, which is mostly full of people who want the opposite of Trump.”

The quote states what I have seen elsewhere. The auto industry is sourced by parts from many manufacturers and components go back and forth across borders in the process of assembly. No one plant builds and entire car. So GM does now own all of its supply chain. Even a US GM or Ford plant will be sourcing components from across borders to do final assembly on a car model. Will an LCD screen from Korea be taxed at 35% if installed in a US assembled car, as one example? If the screen is installed in a dash assembly in Mexico and then sent to the US for the final assembly process to what will the 35% apply. The value added in Mexico or the total value including the cost of the screen from Mexico?

However, the 35% number is perhaps an opening bid. Pat Buchanan ran on I think a 15% number, and this is probably what Trump would settle for. Did Rick Santorum advocate any tariffs in his book, which served as a blueprint for Trump?

“I would tell BMW that if you are building a factory in Mexico and plan to sell cars to the USA, without a 35 percent tax, then you can forget that.” Trump said.

Quoted from Reuters. You need to be careful what is put out in the media, concerning Trump. Most is unreliable.

My guess is that Trump wants auto imports from Mexico to stop, period. The Mexican peso can be manipulated and is fast losing against the dollar. I imagine that Trump wants a killer tax because what’s the point, otherwise?

TAG, you must have a staff that ferrets out misinformation. The German talks about parts. Trump talks about automobiles. Trump talks about Mexico, where auto manufacturers park their factories across the border to manufacture for the U.S. market. The German dep min is simply wrong, or you quote him out of context.

It’s not about free trade. It’s about big corporations parking their manufacturing across the border in Mexico. Trump will stop that, he says, and I think he will. Merkel, Hollande, are history. Trump is a mover and a shaker and will transform the world, the potshots of eurocrats notwithstanding. A new day dawns, are you frightened?

“We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs,” …
“”Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength,”

I wonder what employees of Boeing will have to say when the European and Asian markets are closed to their airplanes by tariff walls. I wonder what the employees of Google and Facebook will have to say when foreign governments apply some nice Internet taxes to their company’s revenue stream. Yes protection will will lead to great prosperity and strength in Seattle and Redmond Walmart employees will like it as well then the prices of all products go up and their store sales diminish. Yes, there will be happy faces in Bentonville when the latest store closure plan is adopted. Think of joy on the buyers of new cars when they find that Detroit can revert to their practices of the 70s. Think of paying higher prices for cars of lower quality. That will be a fine day

Yes, protection will lead to prosperity and strength and higher prices and lower quality and less competition.

for the tariff debate, people will be referencing the Smoot-Hawley Tariffs. The Wikipedia article on them provides a good summary. Note that Smoot saw the problem as one of “underconsumption”. There were too many goods and not enough purchasing power to buy them all at a reasonable price. Therefore he wanted to restrict the amount of goods to match purchasing power. Thus he excluded foreign goods to raise the prices of American produced goods. The result of this was a network of retaliatory tariffs that greatly diminished world trade. Economists disagree on the extent to which these tariffs caused the Depression. Some say it is a major cause and others only as a contributory cause.

Relax, TAG, Trump knows what he’s doing. With Brexit, everything is up for grabs. EU is a set of tenpins at the end of a short lane. Trump knows this. As for for China, one good shake and the whole rotten structure collapses. There will be no trade war because nobody wants one. Sit back and enjoy.

Trump blames the problems of the Rust Belt on NAFTA and free trade in general. Well, as others have pointed out, the Rust Belt long preceded NAFTA. Empty Rust Belt factories were the subject of movies and Bruce Springsteen songs way back into the 70s and 80s.

Trump blames free trade but he makes no mention of two of the prime causes -automation and “right to work” southern states. How is Trump going to address “right to work” laws and their effect on industrial wages and industrial states. is he going to champion a return to widespread unionization?

Trump blames free trade but makes no mention of automation. How is Trump going to deal with automated factories that require highly skilled technicians and not on-the-job-trained machine operators and assemblers?

Trump addressed a real issue with his talk of these forgotten people. However, his solution of restricting trade does not address the real issue. Automation and the loss of worker rights were creating this problem long before NAFTA

TAG, people accept automation as beneficial. They do not accept the export of jobs by U.S. corporations.

You deny that there has been exporting of jobs and repeat the canard that it is only automation. Your credibility sags lower and lower. Now you throw in a little tinder: “southern right to work laws”. Need a light? You are too obvious, TAG. Who are you?

Southern “right to work” states have long been recognized as one of the reasons for the hollowing out of Rust Belt states. Lower wages in south eastern states are just like lower wages in Mexico or elsewhere. The decline of unionization and therefore the decline in workers’ bargaining power is a reason for the current transfer of wealth from labor to capital.

Now couple this with the developments of robotics and other forms of automation and the effect on labor rates is only amplified. It was Trump’s Labor secretary nominee who said something like robots don’t go on strike, don’t take vacations … Someone who has lost there job to a low cost machine is just as out of work as someone who has lost their job to off-shoring

I am someone who has been asking this sort of question for a while. I’ve long wondered where someone from the the millennial generation is going to get a well paying job. the idea that everybody should learn coding and become a web designer falls apart when one realizes that it will be quite straightforward to develop an AI to do the basic web design that these people do. Already, as one example, routine financial reports are being automated and the load on a company’s accountant or CFO is reduced. This is the same type of AI that can create routine newspaper articles about sports events from their score sheets. I an someone who has tried to understand just what sort of society will emerge from the automation of intelligence from AI, big data, the cloud, teh Internet of Things with pervasive 5G connectivity etc. Massive amounts of wealth are going to be generated by the technologies that are available now or in the next few years. trump’s fulminations about free trade only distract from the issue.

It just dawned on me that trump is obsessed with manufacturing factory jobs when automation and AI have moved on from eliminating them and are now focusing on high paying service sector jobs. As I pointed out before -e-discovery services have been automating the analysis of documents in discovery for years. These services do not limit themselves to keyword searches but can extract and search for concepts relevant to teh case and extract patterns of behavior. Analyses that took large numbers of highly paid associates and paralegals are now done by machine. Analyses that cost in the millions now cost a few hundred thousand. Algorithms now look at crime data and determine where criminals will operate and so assign police resources. Financial reports for regulators are automatically extracted. The list can go on.

Automation has eliminated vastly more factory jobs than free trade. Automation is now moving on to highly paid service jobs. Minimum wage jobs are not the ones being threatened since the tasks these people do are difficult to automate. Intelligent software is now moving to replace routine white collar workers. Trump is not only wrong about free trade and automation. He is out of date and has missed the point.

TAG, still claiming that jobs have not been exported and that Trump does not address a real problem, I see. And in your usual verbose, digressive style. Strange that you would choose this forum for such tactics.

Trump has already achieved more than O’bumma achieved in eight years in this respect. The handwriting is on the wall and there will be job creation and prosperity for the next four years. Trump may live to see his image on Mount Rushmore.:-)

TAG, internet sources give U.S. manufacturing jobs at 12 million, down from 17 million in 2000, approximately. China has 114 million manufacturing jobs according to those sources.

It is apparent that you are determined to never concede that the U.S. corporations have been exporting jobs and that Trump has addressed a real problem. Indeed, you now try to suggest that there are no longer jobs in manufacturing, an obvious falsehood. Thus, by dubious means, you propagate the viewpoint that Trump’s achievements are to be discounted.

By the way, TAG, Trump has strong support from the Democrats in Congress for his advocacy of U.S. trade interests. They do not say “Trump is against free trade” as you do. Bernie Sanders praises Trump on his nix of TPP. see current news.

By the way, TAG, Trump has strong support from the Democrats in Congress for his advocacy of U.S. trade interests. They do not say “Trump is against free trade” as you do. Bernie Sanders praises Trump on his nix of TPP. see current news.

The US Congress passed Smoot-Hawley and made the depression far worse than it should have been.

The US Congress repealed Glass-Steagall and let the banks make huge bets knowing that they were too big to fail and too big to jail

Tariffs impose costs. Costs cost jobs. Trump will raise the price of cars with his tariff. People pay more for cars. They have less money to pay for other things. The people who make those other things will lose their jobs. As I indicated, there will be retaliatory tariffs affecting American exports. Boeing could be one good example. A tariff on German cars could produce a retaliatory on US aircraft. Germany would want to support Airbus anyway so why not exclude Boeing completely

This doesn’t address what I said. There will be an economic cost, but it can be that there is a net gain of jobs. You’re stating platitudes (Costs cost jobs) but are ignoring this possibility. Economists don’t oppose tariffs because they are sure that the result is a net job loss; they oppose them because there is a net GDP loss. But that may be worth it.

in regard to tariffs and job losses. here is an extract from a |Forbes article on teh Bush steel tariffs. Trump announced today that any new pipelines must use US made steel

As a result of a Section 201 (“safeguard”) investigation brought at the
behest of the U.S. steel industry, President Bush in March 2002 imposed tariffs
on imports of certain steel products for three years and one day. The tariffs,
combined with other challenges present in the marketplace at the time and in the
months that followed, boosted steel costs to the detriment of American
companies that use steel to produce goods in the United States. The resulting
negative impact included job losses for thousands of American workers.
The Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition (CITAC) Foundation
requested a formal examination of the impact of higher steel costs on American
steel-consuming industries,1 and in particular, a quantification of employment
losses at those companies. This study employed straight-forward and widelyaccepted
regression analysis using a variety of price and employment data to
maximize the reliability of the results.2 We found that:
• 200,000 Americans lost their jobs to higher steel prices during 2002.
These lost jobs represent approximately $4 billion in lost wages from
February to November 2002.3
• One out of four (50,000) of these job losses occurred in the metal
manufacturing, machinery and equipment and transportation equipment and
parts sectors.
• Job losses escalated steadily over 2002, peaking in November (at 202,000
jobs), and slightly declining to 197,000 jobs in December.4
• More American workers lost their jobs in 2002 to higher steel prices than
the total number employed by the U.S. steel industry itself (187,500
Americans were employed by U.S. steel producers in December 2002).

Elsewhere in the Forbes article was a quote from a school whiteboard manufacturer in Oklahoma. The Bush tariffs were costing their company $4 to $5 million dollars a year. This cost would make their whiteboards unaffordable for their customers. The customers would in turn buy inferior substitutes that would likely not be made in teh USA. Without a change in teh tariff, the factory, which employed 50 people, would ahve to shut down.

“Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray and Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo will hold talks with top Trump officials in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday, where security, migration and trade will be discussed.”…from Reuters. Tomorrow is Wednesday. Let’s see, Trump was inaugurated less than a week ago. How about that Trump.

Trump proposes to have Mexico pay for the wall by taxing mexican imports at 20% Spicer says that this will generate $10 billion a year which will pay for the wall. So Trump proposes an import tax which will raise the prices of Mexican goods. So when Americans go to the grocery store and find that the prices of tomatoes has risen, they can know that the extra money they are spending is going to pay for the wall.

So Trump proposes to have Mexico pay for the wall by raising American grocery prices.

It must be very easy to be a Saturday Night Live comedy writer these days

Does anyone else find it odd, that the master negotiator has handled the Mexican negotiations so well that the Mexican government now refuses to talk about the matter. Perhaps there is a limit to the effectiveness of bluster and bullying. Perhaps attempting to humiliate an entire nation is not the most subtle way to handle delicate negotiations.

Given all of this and the tactic of having Mexico pay for the wall by charging Americans more for their groceries, is it possible that this issue has not been thought through?

Mexican president was going to play to home crowd – ” I stood up to Trump”, etc. Trump saw through that. Trump is smarter than you, TAG. Relax. Mexico will pay for the wall, rest assured. 80 % of Mexico’s exports go to the U.S., $20 billion in funds sent by illegals to Mexico, yearly.

Anti-Trump media festers with hate and it seems that it is resolved on inflammatory tactics for the duration of Trump’s presidency. Congress must act: pass a law that media formally declare itself partisan or neutral, make provision for viewers to sue on basis of violations of declared status. Partisanship okay under law, but must declare it. Violating avowed neutral status brings civil lawsuits. Freedom of the press maintained, partisan control of media is made apparent. Viewers by law will have redress against deceptive press via civil suit.

Trump did not leave it in the hands of the State Department to dither over for a year or two. This is an amazing revelation. What a mover and a shaker is that Trump. Puts all past presidents in the shade.

Foreign Policy magazine is regarded as the journal of the realist school of foreign policy. Their reaction to the Trump presidency and his foreign policy is quite interesting. It is available at foreignpolicy (dot) com as one would expect. One could very well say that they are not impressed at all with the way things are going now. One could see this as a window into the views of the professional foreign service officers and why they are appllaed at the disorganization and unprofessionalism of the Trump administration.

Last night (February 2nd) Kellyanne Conway was interviewed by Chris Matthews on his Hardball program. She argued that Trump’s immigration order was justified by pointing to the “Bowling Green Massacre”. She pointed out that it had been perpetrated by Iraqi refugees and that no one talked about it because it had not been covered in the press. The real reason that the massacre was not covered by the press is that there was no “Bowling Green Massacre”. It never happened. It is an urban myth.

One of the great successes of American society is the inclusiveness that is offered to immigrants. The US does not have the alienated neighbourhoods of immigrants that are so common in Europe. The US is not Belgium or france with large numbers of immigrant youth who are unemployed, unemployable and vulnerable to radicalization. The US succeeds with its inclusiveness. It provides a sterile ground for terrorist indoctrination. The “Bowling green Massacre” does not exist because there was no ground that could give birth to it.

Unfortunately social psychology teaches us that the inclusiveness that grants the US this success can be subverted. Dividing society into separate groups can quickly lead to suspicion and conflict between groups. Social psychologists ahve performed experiments (Robbers Cave, Kandinsky-Klee) in which they divide subjects into arbitrary groups. These arbitrary groups then exhibit in-group preference, suspicion and conflict with members of the other group. The identification of immigrants and refugees as some sort of other group is something that will lead to the suspicion and conflict that that social psychology has described. Political speech about “Bowling Green Massacres” and such is the stuff that will create the suspicion that will lead will create the soil of hostile groups that will foster radicalization.

The bowling green terrorists were arrested there in 2011. They had infiltrated on a visa and then disappeared. The Muslim militants intend to set up a network of terrorist cells in the U.S. and then strike simultaneously. Their ability to obtain the nerve gas sarin makes it imperative to control the visas from the seven hotbeds of terrorism, as in Trump’s ban. A mass attack with sarin could overwhelm U.S. health care facilities. O’bumma/Clinton types shut their eyes to this deadly threat.

The Wikipedia article on the Bowling Green terrorists contains a description of the charges against both terrorists. These charges bear no similarity to your description. neither of them were charged with plotting terror attacks within the US.

In addition, there was no pause in the admission of Iraqi refugees as a result of this case. The vetting process was modified to overcome deficiencies discovered with this case. Conway misspoke on this point as well

When educational institutions seek to indoctrinate students with radical dogma and partisan political views, what remedy should be applied? When faculty and staff abuse their position and privileges to foster prejudices and hates in the youth, are they not culpable? This situation, so prevalent amount our educational institutions needs to be addressed and corrected.

There can be no doubt that O’bumma ordered a wiretap on Trump. The president, under U.S. law has the authority to do so, at his discretion, when presented by the DoJ with “certification” that it is conducting an investigation. No court Warrant is needed. Judge Napolitano of Fox News is the authority on this aspect. It seems that this goes back to the Steele dossier. Remember Christopher Steele? The “ex” M-16 agent now in hiding? He presented this to the FBI months before the election.

So this was kept from Trump for weeks after his inauguration. Now he is informed, probably through the DoJ, now under Sessions as AG. There is no doubt that Trump has solid proof. He might not reveal it.

Trump and the Republicans now have O’bumma and his minions by the short hairs and there can be no doubt that O’bumma will be called before congress to testify. I count six congressional committees that have an oar in this: the House committee on 1) intelligence 2)judiciary 3) government oversight and the Senate committees on 4) intelligence 5) judiciary and 6) Homeland Security and Government affairs.
The Republicans can be expected to keep the ball in play until the mid term elections a year and a half from now. O’bumma will be very unhappy during that period, I feel sure. Also Hillary. Also lots of Democrats.

This ends the myth-making attempt on Trump-Russia collusion because the wiretap obviously produced no evidence to support the myth. More questions for O’bumma: why did you keep it quiet?

So Susan Rice holds the smoking pistol. She was National Security Advisor and close confident of O’bumma, with a White House office. If she had political motivation her acts were felonious.

O’bumma is in the Society Islands, on Tetiaroa Island, a private resort. This is part of French Polynesia, a “collectivity” under the French constitution with the unique designation of “Overseas Country”. He arrived here March 16, twelve days after Trump tweeted “wiretap”. The U.S. does not have an extradition treaty with French Polynesia, which is a type of semi-autonomous protectorate of France. We have one with France, but it becomes a legal wrangle to determine if this includes French Polynesia. Also, Franch can refuse extradition if it judges the crime to have been “political”. We live in interesting times.
🙂

Those who imagine that they are well informed about the Syrian Civil War should take the trouble to test their understanding with internet resources. A good place to start would be Wikipedia, which has a lengthy and detailed article on the subject. It is of a neutral viewpoint and gives the positions of the various sects. For example, the Druze generally do not support Assad whilst the Christians are split. The Kurds and the Yazidi are generally not rebels, though they have been persecuted by the regime. The Turkmen were persecuted and hate the regime. Most Alawites are for the government, but some have joined the rebels. The complexity defies simplification.